


Love and Other Lovely Little Violent Things

by Miss_Cosmonaut



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Baz is bad at feelings, Dysfunctional Family, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Narcotics, No Magic - AU, Normal - AU, POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use, Simon is bad at words, Slow Build Simon/Baz, Slow Burn, Summer Love, Teen Angst, baz channels his inner draco, send help, these kids are total emo noodles, this shits spiraling out of control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:24:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 88,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Cosmonaut/pseuds/Miss_Cosmonaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon takes up a summer job as a gardener, and working at the Grimm's mansion turns into a bit of a shitstorm: knuckles and hormones and awkward sexual awakenings drenched in angry boy tears. </p><p>Being a teenager in the middle of nowhere is all kinds of spectacular.</p><p>- </p><p> </p><p>  <i>This fic will not be continued (more about it in the notes)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It started out as a crack idea. And I still don't know what this is. I guess I just really wanted to play around with all of the characters and not just Simon and Baz. I love the family dynamics! I changed up a few things and went into a more angsty drarry direction...sort of...? (Also, I just really wanted Baz to have a bit more of that nasty Malfoyishness...) 
> 
> Anyways, here are the two adorkable nerds doing their thing <3
> 
> (Not betad, and I apologize for all the mistakes you might stumble upon! English is my second language, and the punctuation is driving me insane *screams*)
> 
> [ 20.12.15 - UPDATE: usedtoromanticize made this really awesome playlist on their 8tracks! Go check it out over [here](http://8tracks.com/usedtoromanticize/blue-and-breathing-and-stupidly-brave) ]
> 
> [ 5.02.17 - UPDATE: HI *nervous sweating* It's been CRAZY!! School and work completely spiraled out of control (and everything's still spiraling out of control, but this is me having grown accustomed to chaos) It kind of took me by surprise and I didn't know how to handle it. I stopped writing for months and I had a lot of trouble getting back into it.
> 
> So, I really tried to keep working on LOLLVT for the past year, but frankly (because of course this would happen...) it's almost like I lost it, the whole flow of it, the intention behind it. I keep trying to write and there's this lack of connection I feel towards it and it's the weirdest, most frustrating feeling because part of me wants to finish it so, so bad, but then another part of me wants to re-write everything. There are so many things I want to change, so many new insights and ideas, and I feel like re-writing and re-structuring the whole story would be the only way to get back into it. Looking at it now, it just feels like a first draft I want to pick apart (I guess that's what you get for freeforming fanfiction…shit's the devil…)
> 
> But for now, I have to be really honest about this and say it upfront: I don't think I can finish the fic, at least not in the way I had originally intended to and not with the same "voice", I guess? If that makes sense?? I went into it without a plan whatsoever, no direction, no real ending in mind. I just had so much fun writing it that I didn't pay any attention to the rest. I really hope you guys at least found a way to finish it on your own (there are enough horrible plotholes for that…haaaa…) But I'm the sappiest motherfucker out there, so I bet y'all know in what direction the fic would've gone.
> 
> I'm really sorry, guys. I can't believe over 400 people subscribed to that trainwreck of a story, and I'm so thankful you were there for it and with me and I have so, so much love for all of you <3 ]

**Simon**

The truck hiccups to a stop, wheels gnawing into the gravel of the driveway, motor sputter-spitting. It's a whole scene every time. Tracey (the pickup truck) is moody as hell, and there are days where she will purposefully strand her passengers in the middle of nowhere. And Hampshire is filled with nowheres. It's 80 % no-man's-land, 10 % churches and 10% partially habitable hobbit towns. Tracey likes to throw a fit in the 80 %. It's like she enjoys it. Next to groaning and squirting windshield water whenever she feels like it. Nicky wants to drive her into a lake, but Ebb is far too gentle to let her go ( _"She's family, Nickles. You can't drown family."_ ). I wonder how long Tracey's been family. By the look of the crumbling paint job, probably forever. The Petty's have been around Brockenhurst since the beginning of time. So Tracey's ancient. 

And a hormonal twat. 

I storm out of the truck first, stumbling onto the gravel below and thanking Christ we're still alive. You never know with Tracey. You never know with Nicodemus, either. He's like a mobile pinball machine. He could follow the instructions of a navigation system and manage to zoom past the destination three times in a row while driving circles around the ends of the earth. He's bonkers. Sometimes, I think he's meant to drive Tracey. An oddly perfect destiny. 

We've parked in a nice driveway, pebbled and polished, with a fountain burrowed into the middle, the kind that's so old the stone's all cracked and veiny, green sprouting through. I watch the water sputter out the top, catching the sun in spirals. 

It's hot, the humid kind. Sticky mid-July heat. I can feel the sweat on my thighs and my chest and the slope of my back. I feel like hurling my face into the water. I'd probably chug it all down in one go. Nicky finished the last bottle of water Ebb had stowed in the trunk. The bastard. 

I tail behind Ebb as she walks towards the mansion in a steady pace, her mud-caked rubber boots making the pebbles stick to the soles. The rest of her is clean as a whistle. I've always wondered how Ebb manages to look presentable even after shoveling around in gardens and ripping out weeds. Maybe there's a trick to it, a magical secret to landscaping like an expert. Every summer, I look like I lived through an apocalypse by the end of the day. So does Nicky. Maybe it's a girl's thing then...or a woman's. 

Ebb's boots squelch up the flight of stairs leading up to a heavy wooden door, winged and dark, metal bolted into it in cursive patterns, like vines. Or snakes. Or fingers. There's something inky about this place. Looming. Nightmarish. Too many shadows. Too little windows, with thick red curtains hiding the insides from plain sight. I wonder if Ebb notices the temperature dropping. 

Ebb looks up. There's a gargoyle etched into the stone above the doorway, eyes ogling the two of us, forked tongue spiking out, hungry. 

A fucking gargoyle.

"Alrighty, then," Ebb breathes before whipping her bright hair out of her face and tugging her T-shirt into place (it's white, white as snow and not a blotch in sight). She straightens her shoulders, clears her throat and raps her knuckles on the wood until her skin turns Kool-Aid-red. We wait. Nothing happens. I try the doorbell. Ebb gives me a stern look. She hates doorbells. She thinks they're too insistent, too needy. Instead, she likes knocking - so softly that you probably wouldn't even scare a fly. 

I bump my shoulder into hers and smile a little, just enough for her to see the curl in my lips.  The door opens with a creak. 

Because of course it would open with a creak. 

Gargoyles and door creaking and mysterious windows. 

_So weird._

A young woman peeks out from behind the wood, pointy and fair-skinned. She's wearing those French maid uniforms with the white apron and the round collar.

_Super weird._

I wonder if they have the Adam's family hiding in the basement. If this place even has a basement. It probably has a catacomb that leads all the way down to the center of the earth. Past purgatory, probably. Straight to hell, maybe. 

The maid goes back in to get Mrs. Grimm, the lady of the house. Mrs. Grimm looks the way a woman would look if her maid called her 'lady' and her last name was Grimm. Willowy-tall, dark hair knotted on the top of her head in a perfect globe. The bun is so tight it's pulling her whole entire face towards the sky, skin stretched, making it look like it could tear over all of her angles. 

A blue vein pops at her temple. I can't stop staring at it. 

"Hello, Mrs. Grimm." Ebb smiles her gentlest Ebb-smile, lukewarm and rosy, and she greets her with a hand shake. Mrs. Grimm looks over at me, the corner of her red mouth twitching into a smile. Sort of. I smile back. I feel like curtseying. Or tipping a non-existent top hat. I'm not really sure why I followed Ebb to the door. I could've just stayed with Tracey. I don't know if I'm supposed to introduce myself.  So I don't. 

Ebb clears her throat. Once. Twice. I still feel like curtseying. 

"We're a little early. But a head start's always good," Ebb says, still smiling, and she nudges my foot with hers. She always does that when she thinks I'm being too awkward or breathing too loud or both. Which is more often than I'd like to admit.  

Mrs. Grimm is strung tight but polite. She does this thing with her head where she moves it around like a snake and stares straight into your soul. She's nice, though. She sends her maid to go 'fetch' us some water.  _Fetch_. Like she's sending her to the courtyard to throw a bucket down a well. I bet they totally have a well. A creepy well. Like the one Bruce Wayne fell into when he was a kid. Maybe they have the Batcave in their catacombs. 

Probably. Definitely. Bloody brilliant.

  

✕

  

Mrs. Grimm shows us around the property. It's gargantuan. There's a whole lake out back, surrounded by willow trees drooping their hairy heads above the surface and sculptured pots with vines growing out of them in bundles. They've even got a tennis court and a pavilion and a greenhouse as big as a tiny glass castle. And fountains. So many fountains. It's like a water show. 

_"As you can see, it's all in a very horrible condition,"_ Mrs. Grimm keeps saying. Apart from: _"And this needs to be clipped and that, oh, and this right over here and that over there. Everything must be restructured."_

Which is all bloody fucking bonkers, because there isn't a twig out of place. It's all so symmetrical and out-of-this-world perfect, and I feel so self-conscious just standing next to a butterfly bush. The dirt here is cleaner than me. 

After Mrs. Grimm is finished with her tour, she disappears into her house so fast I wonder whether the people who live here come out to spend their time in the garden. Or come out at all. They're probably allergic to sunlight. 

Nicky sticks a fag into his mouth and leans against a Greek sculpture, a naked woman cradling a naked baby. There's a smirk on his face. Sometimes, that's all I think his face is capable of: smirking and scoffing, muscles flexing around an obligatory cigarette forever stuck in his mouth. 

Ebb slumps onto a bench. She rubs at her face until it's flushed and budded. 

We listen to the birds chirp up in the willow trees. 

"Horrible condition!?" Ebb breaks the silence. We blurt out laughing. 

"Yeah…well, fuckin' rich folks. That lot boggles my mind," Nicky mumbles around the fag. "Bet she comes out here with a ruler and just...starts measuring."

"I wonder who landscaped their garden before us…" Ebb says, scratching dried mud off of her rubber boots. They're yellow. They match her hair, make it shine a little warmer. Like the sun right before it goes to sleep. 

"Jesus…probably. And a holy qualcast cultivator," I say. 

Nicky snorts - or scoffs. I'm never really sure.

"Let's get to work, then. Make Jesus and his holy qualcast cultivator bite the dust," Ebb says. She smiles. 

I nod and start shuffling down the narrow mosaic path cradled by rose bushes. I can hear the bees humming, busy and jet-fueled. Everything out here is so alive. In motion. Breathing.

Nicky flicks his fag into a bush. Ebb doesn't even bother with cocking an eyebrow at him. I don't even bother with bothering. 

We walk back towards the truck in silence. I look up at the sky, straight into the sun, before my eyes spasm close and the back of my lids are tinged with something blazing. 

Today is the first day of my last summer. 

And I already wish it would never ever end. Ever. 

 

 

**Baz**

Aunt Fiona's back. Finally. 

It's always just a matter of time until something goes wrong in her hurricane of a life - broken heart or broken collarbone or broken _everything_ \- and she comes home to get back on the right track.And I know I should feel bad for so many things in her life going backward, but I can't help but be so relived when she comes back. 

To this pit of a place. To home. To me. 

I would never tell her how much I've missed her. Over my dead body. 

"Lookin' darn well sharp, Bazzy!" Fiona screeches from the other side of the train station platform. Everybody stops moving for a split-second, shoulders tugged up high, bracing for impact. Fiona's screeches can do that. Make the world shudder. They're not even human. 

Fiona fights her way through the crowded platform, all ripped up and punk-ish, a glitch in the scenery of Brockenhurst. The white streak in her hair hasn't grown out completely, color starting right above her cheekbone and woven into the dark disarray jumbled onto the top of her head. 

She looks like a wreck.  And I've missed her so much.

  

✕

 

We don't drive back home right away. Fiona's thirsty, and that's code word for pub. We drive up to the only decent one in Brockenhurst. O'Neil's is a hole in the wall down Burreys street, and like everything on Burreys street - it's in its last stage of decay. But it's quiet enough to have a chat without being disturbed by pissed minors. And O'Neil's crisps are fried-through and disgusting and glorious. 

I'm happy that nobody else wanted to come and pick Fiona up. Because of course they wouldn't. Father calls her a train wreck and Daphne thinks she's a bad influence on anything that can breathe and understand English. 

I'm happy. Really happy. I haven't been this happy since the last time she visited.  Fiona's right here, and I have her all to myself. 

"So what I miss? Any family drama? Tragedies? _Murder_?" Fiona's eyes go feline over the rim of her second pint glass. She's downing it like a sprung fire hydrant in reverse.  I haven't even taken a sip of mine.

"The twins are plotting to kill Daphne's cocker spaniel. But other than that, that's the closest our family gets to murder," I say, twisting a soggy coaster between my fingers. 

"That you know of…" Fiona winks. Her eyes are smudgy from all the makeup. It makes her look like a melancholic panda bear. "Seriously, Baz? Half a bloody year, and nothing's happened? Come on, humor me, boyo." 

I shrug and start drooping over the wooden deck of the bar, blotchy and full of crumbs sticking to the liquor stains. Circles and crescents. Leftovers of a million nights. 

I start talking until my mouth goes dry. 

We spend the rest of the evening at O'Neil's. Nobody calls to check up on us. Not that they would. It doesn't matter if I'm at the dinner table or not. It never makes much of a difference. Right now, it's just an empty seat at a silent table. 

It gets warmer the more people wash in. It gets stickier, too, like the air is absorbing all the sweat and fogging up your lungs - next to the cigarette smoke. Fiona is flushed, giggling, and there's a collection of empty pint glasses growing at our end of the bar, because the bartender's too daft to clear it up. Fiona keeps reaching over the deck, grabbing liquor at random and slipping some into her beer. 

She flicks a cigarette up in the air and tries to catch one end of it with her teeth. It plops into the empty basket of crisps she'd practically inhaled half an hour ago. Drinking and talking make her famished. 

She takes another cigarette and tries again. And again. And again.  I watch her, smiling. Aunt Fiona's a one-woman show. 

We talk about everything we hadn't been able to talk about with anybody else. Maybe because nobody else would understand.  Or maybe because nobody else would listen. 

She tells me about London, about Jeremy, a drummer who'd broken her heart before she'd broken his drum sticks. It's always the drummers. Sometimes, I think Fiona looks for someone to tear her apart on purpose. 

She calls it living. 

I call it stupid. And painful. And sometimes…scary. But I don't tell her that. All I ever tell her is to try and find someone normal. And she'll ask, _like who?_ And I'll say, _a nice bloke_. And she'll say, _nice blokes are bloody boring._ And I'll think, _true._  

But crazy boys are worse than bloody boring ones. I'd know. I've met my fair share. Crazy boys get under your skin, rummage, break everything from the inside-out. I've never let it get that far, but I've let it get close enough.  And I've learned my lesson. 

"Ugh…Change of topic…" Fiona groans, poking her finger into the empty basket of crisps and nipping the crumbs off that get stuck to her nail. 

"Did you finish that herbology course?"

"Next," she cuts me off. 

So she didn't. Typical. 

"Are you coming to Mordelia's birthday?" I ask. 

"Nope. Next. And we both know you're not going, either, you git. I swear to God, that one's off her fuckin' trolley." 

I smile. She flings a coaster at me. 

"How's school?" she asks. 

"Next…" I say. 

"Violin?"

"Fantastic." I take a sip of her half liquor, half beer concoction. It blows up my gut. "Job prospects?" I ask. 

"None."

"Plans for the future?" I cock an eyebrow. 

"Plans for the future?" She cocks and eyebrow, arched and painted on. I wonder if that's where I got it from. The chronic eyebrow cocking. 

"Next," we both say at the same time, smiling. Horribly. 

"Boys?" Fiona narrows her eyes like a silent challenge. 

"Yes," I say. 

"Yes what?"

"Just… _yes_." 

She flings another coaster at me. Fiona's the only who knows. About boys…and me. I didn't even tell her. She just knew. At least, that's what she says. You never know with my aunt. She's got eyes and ears everywhere. Sometimes, I wonder if she can crawl into people's brains by looking at them, rummage through the matter, crouch in the middle and listen in on every thought. 

"What about the baby? He still a tiny git?" She cocks an eyebrow. The other one this time. 

"Tybalt? Yeah. He knows how to talk now."

"Fantastic. Another Grimm monster can talk…" Fiona mumbles into her pint glass, the beer bubbling. 

She's never really liked my father and his part of the family. She says they're all stuck up hospital administrators with steel hearts and no ounce of feeling. She doesn't like Daphne, either. Generally because Fiona hadn't liked the idea of my father remarrying. She'd made a whole scene. With screaming and bollocking and plate throwing and hair tearing. She said my father was a cheater, like my mother was still alive, like he was hurting her on purpose. Sometimes, I wonder if Fiona still thinks she's here, her big sister, sitting in her office, watching over the whole entire world. 

Because sometimes, I do. Sometimes, I lie in bed at night and think my mother will come to my room and curl up on my couch and read a book, the way she used to. Calm and beautiful in the light spilling out of the fireplace. 

I look up at Fiona. She's got her head all crooked, and she's staring at me with those smudgy-melancholic-panda-bear eyes. 

"You've grown, you know that? Christ, you never stop growing do you?" She lets out a sound that's close to a laugh. Small and short-lived. But her face doesn't light up, and the hollows start growing. 

She pinches my cheek. I let her. Because nobody's watching, and nobody will ever know. Except for the daft bartender. 

"Every time I come back, you're here. And every time I come back, you look more like her," she says. And her words are so small I can barely hear them through the haze of bar mumbles and the 90's hits fizzing out of the defective speakers. 

She brushes my hair out of my face. I let her do that, too. Just because it feels so nice. Just because she's here, breathing, alive. 

And she's the closest thing I've got to the woman who'd hung the moon. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Simon**

Penny thinks working in people's backyards during summer is taking the whole 'summer job' thing too seriously. She thinks it should be something laid-back, lazy, okay-ish salary and flexible working hours. ( _"Because it's summer, and you're supposed to enjoy spending time with the people who matter, all the while enjoying partial independence. You work in the dirt all day, Simon. How is that a laid-back summer job!?_ ") Penny works at Mrs. Applewhite's bookstore. She just stands behind the counter. Reading. And she gets payed six pounds per hour, which is a-fucking-lot. And the bookstore doesn't even get more than two customers a day. I don't really know if someone asking for directions can be called a customer. But Penny's good at convincing them into buying crappy bookmarks with "I heart Brockenhurst" stitched into the yellow plated cardboard. She's real good. I've seen her talk an old lady into buying fifteen. ( _"Mrs. Applewhite's bookstore is Brockenhurst's own little pride and joy. They're perfect as holiday gifts. Small and simple."_ )

Perfect holiday gifts my arse. Everybody's cross with her for not giving any thought into presents. "I heart Brockehurst" bookmarks are all she's got under her sleeve. I have a whole box of them under my bed. Throwing them away seems too mean - because I know she'll find out. Penny finds out everything. And I'm too impatient to actually use them. On Penny's 17th birthday, Premal gave her a water bottle with a ribbon around it just to spite her. Penny went radioactive. She takes receiving presents very seriously. She just sucks at giving them. But she's working on it. Two weeks ago, she asked me if I could ask Pacey to ask Pip to ask Priyah to ask Premal what he wanted for Christmas. The Bunce family dynamics is bonkers. Communication is something they tend to replace with screaming and throwing inanimate objects. 

Anyways, Priyah is the only one Premal will really talk to. He said he wanted to be left alone for Christmas. 

Bonkers. Completely. 

I've been working with the twins ever since Penny and I had decided to take up summer jobs in ninth year. We'd wanted to save up to get new bikes. Fast ones. Racing bikes. So we could ride down to the coast at light speed, break the sound barrier and let it dry our hair on the way back.  

We kept the jobs ever since. It all worked out somehow. 

And I like working with Ebb and Nicky. They're fun and honest, and they make me feel like I'm partially good at something. 

It's different from when I'm at home, sitting in empty rooms while my dad's cooped up in his office and only comes out for toilet breaks. The Petty s like having me around. Sometimes, they make me feel like I'm not supposed to be anywhere else but with them, in the dirt, under the sun.  They never ask for much. And I don't have much to give, but what I do have, I fling at their faces. 

They're my friends. And I like them. A lot. I like Ebb smiling her sundown-smiles and Nicky telling us bar brawl stories with a fag in his mouth and a trowel in his hand. It just calms me down, the fresh air and the sweating, the soil under my fingernails and the sun on my back. I'm shit at keeping a plant alive at home. But outside, beneath the sky and everything in it, it's different. Completely. It's like being in-synch with something. Breathing in the same motions.  It makes me clench my fists less, and at the end of the day I don't feel like ramming my body into things on purpose. 

Maybe laid-back, lazy isn't my thing. Maybe sweating is. And forgetting about the rest of my life for a while. 

It's the best when we're working in the Grimm's garden. Ever since the Grimms, Ebb's been real happy about having expanded the business up Rhinefield lane, the nicer part of town. With the big manors and the Versailles-gardens and the over-the-top-polite clients.

Vera, the nanny, comes out every afternoon to bring us giant sandwiches and water in crystal carafes with lemon wedges swimming it. Like in fancy restaurants where you eat with a bucketload of silverware and the waiters brush the crumbs from your table. 

Sometimes, Mrs. Grimm comes out and sits with us on the porch, and we go over landscaping infrastructure and stupid small talk. I hate small talk, but I like Mrs. Grimm - because she never stops offering me food, and I love saying "Yes, please.". And sometimes, she brings out lemon cakes. Her lemon cakes taste like sunshine and heartbeats. 

Being in the Grimm's garden has been the highlight of my day so far. It feels like a patch on the globe that won't budge, stuck mid-orbit, infinite. A secret pocket burrowed into the galaxy. A safe haven. 

The back of the lake is my favorite. It's not perfectly clipped, not organized or symmetric. It's a little wilder, unruly. Patches of shrubs and accidental flowers bud in clusters, like pastel smudges on a green canvas. A hideout beneath willow trees and sunlight. Ebb says we need to clean up this part of the garden, too. Mrs. Grimm wants us to shovel up a pathway through it to build a bench at the foot of the lake. I convinced Ebb to save it up for last. I like spending my breaks there, eating my sandwich with my bare feet in the water and my back against willow tree bark.

Every afternoon, somebody in the mansion plays violin. 

Mournful. Slow. It makes me feel lonely, like I'm sitting in the dark at midnight, listening to someone send hymns to the stars. 

Hopelessly. 

As if they know they'll never reach them. 

 

 

**Baz**

My hand won't stop shaking around the bow. Each tone comes out taut, strung-tight. It makes the music screechy, whiney almost. Weeping.

My mind is like a child that won't sit still, rocking back and forth, too many fidgets. 

" _Fuck_!" I groan and rip the bow away from the strings mid-note. It's like listening to something fall from a cliff.

I feel like smashing my violin against a bookshelf. And then bash it on the floor. And then again. Like metal rockstars do with their electric guitars. Or like that one time aunt Fiona threw Octavia's cello out the window because " _It sounded like someone was dying, for fuck's sake! Who in the name of God gave this kid something that makes a bloody sound!?"._

I lay the violin back into the case - as gruffly as I can afford to. But then I feel bad and end up polishing the tail piece and cleaning the pegs. I can't hurt this thing even if I want to. 

My grandfather used to say instruments are earthly translators for the soul. Like interpreters. And playing the violin is the toughest of them all because it deciphers the sounds of your heartstrings. 

He used to think he was a Shakespeare incarnate. 

Right now, the only sounds my heartstrings are making are depressing. I think it's safe to say that Octavia can probably make her cello do nicer things. (Her new cello. Her _fourth_ new cello. Fiona won't stop sabotaging them every time she comes to visit.)

I twist the bow between my fingers and pace around the library. My feet keep steering me in circles until I stop in front of the stretch of lead paned windows. I opened a few, the sticky summer air crawling in thawing up the room. My stepmother doesn't like to have the windows open or the curtains swept back. She likes having the house closed off. Sealed. And when you stand in the middle of it, the farthest away from any source of light, it's like breathing in a void. I always wonder if that's what being in space feels like. Numbed. A bottomless hole. 

I stare out at the garden. The library is the only place where you can really get your fill of it. You can see the lake from here and a bit of the greenhouse. I remember a time where I'd play my violin and watch my mother shovel around in the pots behind the glass walls, taking care of her herbs and swaying to the songs I'd send her way. It was her favorite thing to do, spending her time in the greenhouse, making its insides come alive in the crystal sun.  No one ever steps foot in there now. Especially not Fiona. She says it's lonely. Lacking. And it's not just in the greenhouse, it's in the whole entire garden, too. This incompleteness. Like the center of a portrait bleached out. A blind spot. 

Maybe that's why Daphne has hired new landscapers to plow right through it. Because she wants to get rid of the last thing that reminds anybody of Natasha. And I don't blame her. My mother is this looming presence, constant, an airborne epidemic. She's everywhere you look in this town. It feels like a curse. Sometimes, I hate her for it. For being so big that the universe can't really get rid of her, not completely. 

Like a dead star. 

They explode, and they splatter their light across half of the dark matter - and they stay there, imprinted, even after they're long gone. 

You can never really get over something if it's still there, if you can still feel it clinging to you.

So maybe I'm thankful for Daphne trying to get rid of her. Even though I would never admit it anywhere else but inside of my head. Fiona would hate me for it if she knew. 

But I'm tired. Everybody is so tired. 

I stare at my reflection in a window. The evening is rolling in, and it's dark enough to see the details.  Every time I look at myself it's like seeing a ghost. 

I keep hearing Fiona's voice in my head, desperately hopeful. 

_"And every time I come back, you look more and more like her."_

The door bangs open. My heart jumps straight out of my chest and splatters across the paned glass. 

"Baz, I'm bored!" 

I snap around so fast I feel the whiplash. "For fuck's sake! Knock! Mordelia, how hard is it to just fucking knock? It's the easiest thing! How daft are you!?"  I didn't meant to shout, didn't mean to be so mean. And it scares me, hearing my voice bellow through the room like a rabid dog, huffing, tongue out, angry. 

Mordelia is standing in the doorway, her little hands clutching at the knob shaped like a dragon. Her eyebrows stoop so low, and her head starts flaming up, and her eyes - like death rays. 

Fantastic. Bloody fantastic. 

She charges. I don't really know what to do. Catch her? Clutch her? Call Daphne and tell her my sister is trying to kill me?

Mordelia growls, and it sounds manic, her black pigtails bashing through the air like she's being electrocuted. She flashes around me and rips the bow out of my hand. 

And then she's running. To God knows where. Her evil lair probably. The pits of purgatory where she plans total world domination with her army of summoned demons.

I run after her, down the polished hallways, past thick curtains spilling over the floor in ruby puddles, and carpet after carpet after carpet. She jumps down the main stairs, and I jump right after her. She's probably headed towards the wine cellar. I swear she sleeps there sometimes - on the cold floor…or in a secret coffin. 

She makes a beeline towards the third living room and through the kitchen. 

"Mordelia! Give it back, you little sh -"

"No running, Basilton! What did I say about running?" Daphne calls from the foyer. It's like I'm ten again. 

I hear the screech of the terrace door and little footsteps dribbling across the wooden deck. 

She's outside. _Outside_. 

Mordelia's cackling like a mini Bond villain. 

Seriously. Fuck this family. 

 

 

**Simon**

The sun stoops down and disappears behind the Grimm's manor. It looks like the house is swallowing it. Gobbling it down. And the air gets cold fast. 

Ebb says we'll be working in the dark a lot from now on. Mrs. Grimm wants us to redo the main pathway and switch half the roses with snapdragons and carnations. Which is a bloody waste, because the roses just belong here. It feels like we're ripping the soul straight out of the soil, like we're messing up its heartbeat.

Ebb says Mrs. Grimm just wants change. And I guess that I get that. Sort of. I bet rich people get bored, too. I keep remembering how Agatha loved painting her nails a different color every week. Like clockwork. I don't know if she still does it now. I haven't talked to her for the longest time. At this point, I don't know if I genuinely miss her - or still have to get used to the feeling of her not being there. But it's easier than I thought it would be. Which worries me a little. And also doesn't. 

I don't know. I never know. And the more I think, the less I know.  I keep walking circles through the greenhouse, thinking so much I stop knowing anything at all. 

Mrs. Grimm told us we're not allowed anywhere near the greenhouse. She'd said it like it was some sort of bad omen. _"Just stay away from it"_ , she'd said, pointing at the greenhouse and looking into the opposite direction. Her mouth had looked strained, more strained than usual, and her face, usually taut and tight, had tumbled. Just the slightest bit. Not enough to really notice. But enough to really know. 

She doesn't want to have anything to do with whatever's in it. 

Which is why I picked the lock in the first place. 

Maybe this place has a secret. Maybe not just one - but a million. 

The greenhouse is a palace. A world of glass and dust and dead things. It must've been beautiful, at some point, back when the pots were sprouting green out of their bellies and the floor was polished marble. At least I think it's marble. It's hard to figure out with the layer of dirt and dust caked over it, cracks running through it like a network - like spiderwebs. I follow them through rows and rows of narrow tables, weighed down by pots and bags of soil, everything wrung dry by the absence of water and the abundance of time.

The greenhouse is built like a cross, perfectly symmetrical, and in the center it burrows up into a dome. It reminds me of those paintings of Roman churches, with scooped out ceilings and a hole carved into the middle. A looking glass for the man in the sky.

_Come take a peek._

I walk towards the center, my steps echoing, coir-like. And I look up.And I'm standing in the heart of something. A dead heart. A dead beat.

The whole entire sky is the color of a bruise. 

_Clatter. Clank. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch._

Like something tiny running across the debris of the greenhouse graveyard.  

I whip around, head going hazy, shoulders tugged up. 

_Clatter. Clank. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch._

What if this place is haunted?

I swallow the clump of static fuzzing up in my throat. It just makes it worse. 

Ghosts. Of course. This place is like the breeding ground for everything that technically belongs to the underworld. Mrs. Grimm's probably a devil worshiper. Or a witch. Or both. Maybe this is where they hide the bodies. Sacrificed virgins. 

The flower pots are all big enough for severed body parts. 

"Hello?" I say - and I don't plan on saying it again because I feel fucking daft. 

Little giggles throw themselves from the glass walls, like bouncy balls going here and there and up and down. I follow them, stumbling through the narrow paths between the rows of tables, my shoes crushing leaves, dried up and ancient. 

"No one's allowed in the greenhouse," a voice says, too high up to belong to someone not older than seven. There's a screech to it, clinging to the vowels, vice-tight. It makes the back of my head go numb. 

There's a crack behind me. Weight splitting a twig in half. 

I whip around. 

A girl is standing a few feet away, tiny and pigtailed and dressed like a strawberry shortcake. There's something about her face that reminds me of Mrs. Grimm. Maybe it's the mouth, I think, the way it doesn't quite close over her teeth.

"No one," the girl says. And she grins. And it looks like the worst kind of trouble. 

"Well, I was - " I take a breath. The air goes clumpy in my nostrils. "I was given the - um - key. To…check if everything's okay. In order." 

The girl has big eyes, huge, like moon beams. It looks like she's waiting for something. Anything. 

"But," I wave my arms around, "everything seems to be in order. So…I'll go…then." I steer towards the passage that leads to the door, but the girl steps into my way, ogling. 

I don't really know what to do with her. So we just stare at each other, breathing, not blinking.

I bend down a little. My knees crack. I blink. She doesn't.

"What's your name?" I ask. Because the silence is getting weird, and the girl's smile is tensing into something brutal. I wonder if this is what serial killers look like before they slaughter their victims. Like they're inappropriately hungry. 

Her smile widens, and I'm afraid her skull might crack. She's holding something behind her back, pointy like a stick, polished. 

_Murder weapon._

"Mordelia! Get back here, you brat! You're not supposed to be in here!" Someone shouts, low, urgent. It sounds like it's coming from everywhere at once. "How'd you even get the door open?"

The little girl's eyes go even wider, and her smile is tearing right through her face. She starts laughing. And I'm standing there, praying - for God knows what, to God knows who. 

"Mordelia! I swear, if you break my bow, you're dead. You got that? You're dead!" 

Boy. Definitely a boy. 

I jerk together every time his voice cracks in the middle, like lightning cutting through a thundercloud. 

The girl makes a run for it.  And I'm still standing there, wondering if any of this is actually real. 

I hear a clatter and a crunch, and the little girl starts screeching like she's being butchered.  

Or maybe she's - _actually being butchered._

I run towards the noise, heavy breaths, clothes ruffling, limbs hitting limbs. I have a millisecond to ask myself whether I'd be the first person to die in an American slasher movie (besides the blonde cheerleader with an oral fixation). Probably. Definitely. 

I keep rushing towards the grunts and the sounds of someone trying to break something. I can make out shadows in the dusky light. One big. One small. Moving fast. A jumble of limbs. 

"Let me go, Baz! I'm telling mum! I'm telling mum!"

"My bow! Give it here, you little - _Ow_! Did you just fucking bite me!? Did you just - "

I stumble, hands bashing as I slam my weight onto the nearest table. A flower pot crashes into the floor. I skid out of the way, shards flying, soil spilling. 

Bloody hell. 

The two stop fighting, shadows stuck mid-motion. Their attention snaps towards me, and I can feel their eyes nailing my skull into place. _Bam-smash_. 

"Uh - Hi." I don't know what else to say. I look down at the remnants of the flower pot scattered across the floor - then back up. 

The big shadow, the boy, straightens his back, and I swear I can hear it, the knobs clicking themselves into place, going sky-high. And then he's shoving the girl behind him, one hand tight around her wrist. He looks like her. But barely. Everything about him is longer, more cut, the sharpest angles. His dark hair falls into his face. It's long for a bloke's, wavy at the tips, arched and parted around a widow's peak - like a mellow black-and-white-movie vampire. 

The girl peeks out from behind his hip, still smiling, but the nutty kind, the kind that looks like she can't wait for whatever is about to happen next. 

"Who are you?" the boy asks. Cooly. Ice blue. There's no more anger there - just nothing. 

The static's back in my throat, fuzzing everything up, and I'm scared if I open my mouth, everything will just splurge out. Because it always does. So I just say nothing. I just breathe. And stare. And wonder whether I could slice my fingers open if I slid them down his jawline. 

"Who let you in?" He's skimming me up and down, stare harsh, and I feel like running. "Was he in here when you ran in, Mordelia?" The boy turns, and he tightens his grip around the girl's wrist, knuckles white. It looks like it hurts. The being held and the holding on. 

"I - uh - " I swallow, then try agin. "I - the gardener. I have the - uh - keys. I came. To check." 

Great. 

The boy cocks an eyebrow, and it's so perfectly symmetrical, prettier than Agatha's. I can't stop staring at it. 

" _Out_ ," he says, and it's the kind of tone that makes my chest vibrate. "Get out." Low. Urgent. Anger cracking through the icy blue. 

"But I - " 

"I said _go_." 

I swear he's growing two inches, rising out of his skin. A big shadow. And he's so violent, still, chest not moving.  


I really want to punch him in the face. Mess up his perfect fucking eyebrows. 

"I'm supposed to - here to check! It's my, you know, it's my - job." I don't know why I'm still trying. 

"You broke a pot," the girl says. How are her facial muscles capable of keeping that kind of smile intact? There's got to be some sort of internal pressure. Maybe her brain might explode. 

"Mordelia, don't talk to the - " The boy gives me a once-over. I can feel it, sharp eyes plowing right through my skin. Causing internal bleeding. " _Gardener_ ," he says. 

_Gardener_.

The way he said it. The way he fucking said it. 

I feel my fingers crunch towards my palms, grip tightening like nails being screwed into wood. 

_Gardener_. 

Like I'm filthy. Beneath him. 

"Hey!" It turns into a shout the second it leaves my head and hits the air. I'm not sure whether I regret it yet. 

The boy's eyebrows go taut. And his chest puffs up. And my chest puffs up, too. And the little girl's face bursts open. Nuclear. 

"Simon?" 

_Ebb_. 

"Simon? Mrs. Grimm said we're not supposed to come in here." Ebb's rubber boots squelch. It's a whole scene. Everybody's just holding their breath, listening.

_Squelch. Squelch. Squelch._

I feel like using the pause to charge forward and knock this kid off his feet. And his high horse. And maybe my knuckles could make his eyebrows disintegrate.

"Oh." Ebb stops at the end of the first row of tables. It's so dark her hair looks murky. 

The boy drops the tension. It's like a bloody switch or something. Because he turns his back without so much of a glance, and he rips the little girl up into the air and throws her over his shoulder. She tramples and screeches, and he just grips her tighter and walks straight towards Ebb like he couldn't give less fucks. 

It reminds me of those action scenes where those guys in suits walk towards the audience in slow motion while something explodes in the background. 

"Tell your _employee_ not to snoop around places he's not supposed to," he says so close to Ebb's face I bet she could smack him if she wanted to. Which I really want her to want. But Ebb won't even hit a fly with a newspaper, so I think hoping's hopeless. 

He strides past her and out the door. _Strides_. Like he's on some goddamned mission. 

Ebb opens her mouth, but she closes it with a clack of her teeth. She can't stop staring after him.  I can't stop wanting to throw something at his head. 

I join Ebb at the door. And we just watch. 

"And he's paying for the pot!" The boy shouts over his free shoulder while his other one is being mauled over by a little screeching demon, her hands clawing at the back of his polo shirt. He's holding the stick the girl had hid behind her back in the greenhouse. He'd called it a bow, I think. Bow like a bow and arrow?

Ebb doesn't gulp for air until the two of them have disappeared through the terrace doors. 

"What in the world?" she breathes, barely loud enough for me to hear. 

"He called me a gardener," I say. "A _gardener_. Not a gardener like gardener. A gardener like _gardener_."

Ebb turns to look at me, face scrunched up. "You broke a pot? Again, Simon? Again?"

"Ebb! We just met the rest of the Grimms. And they're psychotic. And horrible. Let's quit. Let's just take that job Mr. Adderly offered. Screw the crappy pay. At least he doesn't have demon children."

"You broke a pot, Simon."

"He called me a _gardener_."

"We're not quitting." Ebb points a finger at me. There's a piece of hair in her mouth. "And you're paying for that pot. You're cleaning up that mess, too." 

I bite back a groan and kick the grass when Ebb turns her back. 

"Don't go back into the greenhouse." She walks up towards the path that leads to the driveway. "You hear? No more breaking any rules."

"I just - wanted to see what all the fuss was about," I shout after her.

She doesn't answer. I kick the grass again until the there's a hole in the ground. 

_Gardener_.

_Kid probably has his head stuck too far up his arse,_ I think. 

I look up at the mansion. With the sun gone, it's ink-drop black, growing into the sky, the biggest shadow of them all.

I keep thinking about the bow. It had looked like the kind of thing you use to play instruments with strings, like cellos or double basses - or violins. 

A bow to play a violin. 

A bow to send hymns to the stars. Hopelessly. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awkward Simon is my jaaaaam. And bitchy Baz. God, I love them so much someone send help. 
> 
> Hope you're having a spectabulous day! See you around :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Baz**

There was a boy in the greenhouse. Not a boy. A gardener. A boy gardener. A gardener boy. 

And no one - not even gardener boys - are allowed to step foot into the greenhouse. _Her_ greenhouse. It's like having a stranger dig up her coffin to slip in and lie next to her bones. The thought is horrid. I twist in my bed, pressing my hands into my stomach to push down that bubbly feeling I get when I know I'm about to throw up.  I stare up at the wood that hangs over my bed, dark and cut. At night, all the carved creatures morph into this glob of shadows. I used to be afraid of lying on my back and staring up when I was a kid.  

He broke a pot. He snuck into my mother's greenhouse and broke one of her pots. And he couldn't even explain himself. He just stood there, staring, stumbling over words and sucking air like he was close to hyperventilating. 

Daft. They're all daft, the gardeners. One of them, the older one with the smudgy look, keeps flicking cigarettes into the bushes - like it's none of his goddamned business. I don't think Daphne put much thought into who she should hire. I bet she just wanted to get it over with. I bet she doesn't care who plows through the garden, as long as it's being plowed through and transfigured - and being rid of any last trace my mother left behind. 

But Daphne's going to have to do so much more if she cares about the latter. 

I roll out of bed and put on anything that's decent enough to be caught sneaking around with at midnight. I rush down to the garage and sit in my father's Jaguar until I decide to punch the engine alive. It's loud enough to wake up the whole entire house. And I know everybody knows. I know they know I'm driving the Jag out of the garage, down the driveway, onto the patchy road of Rhinefield lane. 

I know they know. And I know they don't care. 

I drive through the dark with nothing but the headlights and the glowing dashboard to keep me company. The world is asleep, just beating, breathing, not moving. This is where all the good things happen - because all the good things haven't been taken yet: the good ideas, the good deeds, the good intentions. They're all there, waiting for when the sun comes up, waiting to be used and abused until the dark rolls in and they try again. 

I like this part of the day, where everything's just waiting for something to happen. Sometimes, I wish I could live in the dark and sleep when the sky turns on the light. 

I drive an hour. Just circles. A million circles. And then I stop at the old church down Hickory road. It stands tall on the side of the road, caved in, walls covered in vines and time and graffiti stains. But I know that beneath all those layers it looks like the moon. Still and dusty-white, the center of a silent universe. 

I crack a window and light the last cigarette in the packet my father had hid in the glove compartment. He swore to Daphne he gave up smoking. 

_Liar_. 

Him and all of us. My family is addicted to secrets. We are ten thousand enigmas in a single bloodline. 

I smoke until my lungs are factory grounds and the stars start disappearing one by one.  I think about that gardener boy, the mud on his clothes, roughened up, hair a coiled disaster. And I think of his fists, quaking. He was ready to punch me in the gut. I could see it in his eyes, in his skin, something hot bubbling up. He wasn't afraid.  Everybody is afraid. I want them to be. People who are afraid stay away. It's instinct: aversion to fear is human nature. We're not built to confront something that makes us afraid, to stand tall in the face of it. Fear. Panic. We like staying on the other side and looking the other way.

But he didn't look the other way. He looked straight at me. 

Blue. And breathing. And stupidly brave.

  

✕ 

  

When I get back home, the sun's climbing up the sky. I can't feel my face, and my eyes are puffy, lids drooping.  My mouth tastes like a burnt out fire pit. 

Fiona is standing beneath the open garage door. I must've forgotten to close it. I wonder how long she's been waiting for me. Her hair falls over her shoulders in frizzy bundles, and she tugs her night robe tighter, arms crossed. It's not even that cold. But she's shaking. Like a woman on a widow's walk staring out at the sea, waiting, hoping. 

She makes way. I drive into the garage, fingers biting into the leather of the steering wheel.  I hear her knock against the window.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asks through the glass.

I say, "No."

She says, "Hungry?"

I think, _famished_. 

 

✕ 

  

It's like this sometimes, the two of us staying silent and just being in each other's company. Sometimes, I don't even know what's bothering me so much. Sometimes, Fiona doesn't know, either. Sometimes, we just sit on the kitchen counter and eat her terrible pancakes (they have the consistency of rubber and taste like she just threw together whatever she thinks belongs into a pancake batter), and we watch our feet dangle above the tiles. It used to be like this every night after my mother left. 

I'd rather say 'left' than 'passed away' or 'died' - or 'drove into a ditch on her way home from the hospital'. I like to say 'left' because there might be the impossible possibility that she might impossibly come back. To Fiona. To me. 

But using 'left' aways makes my chest feel hollow. Maybe it's a bad habit. Or a mechanism. I should stop using it. Maybe I should start using 'died', make it more real. 

It's been eight years, and I still can't make it more real. 

It's a vicious cycle. I want it to be more real, and I want her to leave me alone - but then I take it all back, and I want her to come down and fetch me and fly me into the night sky. Somewhere between the moon and the North Star. That's where she lives. I wish I could leave this whole mess behind and go live there, too. 

We sit on the countertop in silence. We eat the pancakes in silence, too. I like it when we don't feel the need to talk. I just like having her there, knowing her elbow is bumping against mine and her heels are kicking against the cabinets below. The rhythm of her kicks matches the beat in my chest. 

After my third pancake, she stops kicking. She leans towards me and ruffles my hair. I don't bat her hand away because I haven't got any gel in it yet - and I know it looks like a disaster. She jumps from the kitchen counter, her lilac robe fluttering around like a nervous butterfly. 

"You look like shit. Get some sleep, boyo," she says, and she inches closer, reaching out, and I think she's going to touch my hair again or hug me or pinch my cheek. But she doesn't. She pulls her hand back and smiles. It's the smallest thing, far too invisible for someone like aunt Fiona.  She sneaks out into the foyer, the wood creaking under her weight. I count her steps to fifteen, and then I eat the last pancake in silence. With my eyes closed. And my head leaning against the cupboard. 

I try to tug my thoughts away from the black pit in the middle of my head, the bad place filled with bad things. The void. 

So I think about that gardener boy. That boy gardener. It isn't any better. The thought of him makes the space between my eyebrows tense up.

Fucking daft, that one. _Daft_. 

And blue. And breathing. And stupidly brave.

I wonder whether Venus can count as a hair color. Or Mars. 

 

 

**Simon**

"And then - _then, Penny -_ he called me a _gardener!"_  I can't stop shouting. It feels like the liquor is turning my throat into a megaphone. 

"You are a gardener!" Penny and Micah say at the exact same time, like they're completely in-synch even with the whole entire Atlantic Ocean between them. It's scary. I swear their brains are connected by some telepathic bond. Or maybe it's some cosmic entity reaching down from the stars. 

I scramble around Penny's bed, throwing half of her pillow infestation onto the floor while I try to sit up straight. They're both staring at me: Penny, from where she's slumped over her desk; Micah, through the computer screen. Or maybe the screen just froze. Because that's what it's been doing for the past hour. He'll talk, and then he'll stop talking and just stare at a spot behind your shoulder until you realize the internet's just in the way. Brockenhurst's connection to the outside world might as well be handed over to messenger pigeons. The internet's probably slower than a bird trying to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. 

Penny always gets anxious when the connection dies, as if she's lost him completely, and she'll bat at the bulging screen and the system unit (Penny's computer is ancient, like, 90's-ancient), and then she'll just start cursing until Premal breaks down her door and throws a sock at her face. It's all very dramatic. And it's like this every weekend. Except, today, we're pissed. Penny turns into a red-haired blob of giggles when she's pissed. She can stare at walls and laugh for an hour straight. It's a spectacle. Sometimes, I think alcohol is the only thing that can uncoil her, loosen her up, make the world less serious. It's nice. It's like watching a building block being lifted from her shoulders. And she's like the girl I met back in Primary, flushed and candy-appled and ready for stupid adventures. 

I watch Penny tickle the screen of her computer. It looks like she's petting Micah's face - Micah's perfect, symmetrical face, with his bleached teeth and his wavy surfer hair. He looks like the type of person who belongs some place warm, with endless sunsets and Bahamas-blue waves and a shitton of Piña Coladas. 

He's Spanish. He looks like a summer cove. And Penny loves him so much I think she might burst. 

The Micah on the computer screen starts moving again, image fuzzing up and words coming out of the speakers in spurts. 

"Am I back? Hello?" he asks, coherent enough. I like it when Americans talk - not the loud ones from the South - and Micah does this thing with his _ands_ that makes me think of butterscotch.

"Hello? Guys?" he says, waving. 

I nod. Penny keeps on petting the screen. 

"Penn…" he says. That's what he calls her. _Penn_. The 'y' is too uncool to keep. 

"Yes?" Penny pulls her hands into her lap and leans back in her desk chair. It creaks as she pushed herself away from the computer, wheels gnawing into the uneven floorboards of her room. She crawls onto the bed, plops down next to me, all soft shapes, warm autumn. She pokes my cheek, then reaches for the bottle of Bourbon in my hands and takes a big gulp. She giggles. I try not to. 

"Slow down, Penn, Jesus…" Micah's all fidgety. He doesn't drink, and he doesn't smoke, and he's allergic to breaking the rules. He's going to Harvard next year, and he's interning at this corporation that provides education to children in Tahiti…or Zimbabwe…or something. He's like Jesus. He likes to say Jesus a lot, too. And he pretty much acts like Jesus is watching. 24 hours a day. Penny says he's an atheist, though. 

"Oh, come on, Micah. It's Friday. I ought to have a little fun," Penny says, and I nod - and stop nodding when Micah gives me one of his I-trusted-you-with-taking-care-of-the-love-of-my-life stares.

Micah fidgets around with his headphones and breathes out so loud the speakers crack. 

"Yeah," he says to a spot on the wall behind us. "Yeah, okay." 

Penny smiles (liquor-drenched and polychromatic), and Micah smiles (Jesus-y). And then they just stare at each other for a full minute, smiling and being inappropriately quiet. I drink from the Bourbon until my gut sets itself on fire. Micah clears his throat. Penny's cheeks look like heart shapes. If I feel like a third wheel now, I wonder how it's going to be like next year when we go visit him. And he'll be there in person. And Penny will be next to him in person. And they'll be snogging. In person. And I'll be the awkward _other guy_ watching them snog. In person. 

"Look, Simon." Micah flicks his eyes towards me and scratches his head. "I bet you're just interpreting the whole gardener thing the wrong way. Sometimes, anger can lead to a distorted perception of reality. I bet he didn't mean it."

I groan, and I slam my back into Penny's rumpled bed. It smells like her. Chocolate and kitchen herbs. 

"He meant it. I know he meant it," I mumble, and I think about the boy's eyes - like icicles, knives, things that can pierce their way into your brain. "He did this thing with his nose and, like, his eyebrows, and he looked like he wanted to kill me. And his sister! Well, I sort of - _think_ it's his sister…She wanted to kill me, too. Definitely. It was horrifying."

I wonder how it's possible for horrifying people to play the violin in a way that makes your heartbeat hurt.   


Penny bursts out laughing, and it's so loud I hope we don't wake up her family. But the Bunces sleep like the dead (Penny can sleep through a disturbingly high amount of natural disasters), so I think we're safe. 

The space between Micah's perfect eyebrows starts to wrinkle. But now that I've seen even more perfect eyebrows, they aren't so perfect anymore. 

He looks like he's trying to think of another mature thing to say. But he doesn't. He just stares into space until he clears his throat and looks over at Penny. Her laughing has toned down to a series of tiny snorts. I smack a pillow against her face. 

"I told you to go get an easier job," Penny mumbles into the pillow. "I can talk to Mrs. Applewhite. Maybe she'll let you work at the store."

"And read all day? And talk old ladies into buying shitty bookmarks? No thank you."

Penny claws at the pillow and hurls it across the room. It hits a bookshelf, and one of her star atlases plops onto the ground. 

We stay quiet for a few seconds, listening, hoping we don't hear any floorboards creaking or bare feet shuffling up crooked stairs. Everything in Penelope's house creaks. And everything in Penelope's house is crooked. It's the hardest thing to sneak in and out. So we just climb out of the window sometimes. Penny's room is on the second floor, and there's a flower arch that leads to the porch below her window. I always feel like Ethan Hunt when I climb up to her room on nights where I can't sleep in my own bed. 

Penny's bed is big enough for three people. Or two moderately big teenagers and one skinny-slim Agatha. I shake my head. I don't want to think about how this is my second weekend at Penny's - without her. Because the more I think about it, the more I feel like nothing's missing. Not really. Not the way it's supposed to. The room feels whole, complete. It was good with her. And it is good without her. And I don't know whether it's a good feeling or not. 

When the coast is clear, Penny starts talking again, quiet and strained, holding back her giggles. She talks about stupid things, things so stupid they make Micah laugh. I think Micah only ever really laughs when Penny's around. It always starts out tense like he's warming up muscles, sort of like butter in a microwave. And sometimes, it'll just explode straight out of his mouth, and he'll look so light, as if he's finally freed from the burden of not having laughed for a whole entire week. Because I don't think he does. I think he only laughs once a week on Friday evenings. When he gets to see Penny through a computer screen. 

I let their conversation about Micah's baseball season lull me to sleep.  

  

✕

 

 I wake up to Penny turning off her computer, her witch costume glasses shoved up into her curly hair, her cheeks so red. 

"Micah said you look like a golden retriever puppy when you sleep," she says. "A clumsy one…that keeps running into furniture and eating everybody's shoes. Like Scout."

"Did your boyfriend compare me to his _dog_?"

"Yes."

"Sod off."

I snort. Penny smiles. She digs the bottle of Bourbon out of the bedsheets and hides it in her knicker drawer. That's where she keeps all her 'mischievous' things, like cigarette packets and Charlotte Roche books and Halloween candy she stole from Priyah and Pip. I've never taken a look. But Agatha told me. So I don't know if any of it's true. But I can definitely see Penny stealing Halloween candy from her siblings. 

Penny throws all the capsized pillows back onto her bed and crawls into the empty space next to me. I always wonder how she can sleep with so many things around her at once. But she says she likes beds that are full. They make her less lonely. I don't know why she'd feel lonely otherwise. And I don't ask. I just nod. Because that's what Penny likes. 

"So…I'm guessing you're going to stay the night?" She says, more like breathes. I can barely hear her one pillow away. I peek out from under one of her blankets, checkered green and pink. Her head shields me from the light coming from her bedside table. It makes her hair burst into flames, the glow from behind, like a fireball halo. 

I know I'm a little more than just tipsy. Because the bed rocks back and forth, and it's floating across the sea. And her hair, like a lighthouse. 

"If that's okay?" I say. 

Penny crunches her eyebrows. They're dark, and I wonder what she looks like with her normal hair color. Not as special, maybe. Not as blazing. 

"Of course it's okay, Simon. It's always okay. You know that. I don't know why you keep asking." She turns and bats across her bedside table until her hand finds the switch of the lamp. The room goes dark. 

"You can stay for breakfast."

"I don't know if your parents can take three whole days of me."

Penny's mom treats me like an elephant in a porcelain store. She makes me stand in corners, and she'll tell me not to move and hand me sandwiches - like I'm some kid at a restaurant that needs crayons and coloring books to just shut up. 

"They can't," Penny says. "But I can. And I'd rather have you here than - " She sucks in a puff of air, and I know she's thinking about what she's going to say next. 

My dad and my home are tough to put into words. It's like talking about a deceased a day after the funeral. 

"I'd rather have you _here_ ," she just says. "With me."

I smile. She smiles. I can't see it. But I can hear it, the flex of her mouth, the wet flesh rubbing against her teeth. 

"It's going to be a good summer. Because it's our last summer…you know…before it all starts."

The Great Beyond, I think. The life after school. The real life. The future. My future. Ours. 

"We'll make it good," she says. "And then next year, we'll spend it on the road. You and me. And Micah. I can't wait. It's going to be so _good_. So, so good." Penny burrows herself into the blankets and the pillows, and she's so close I've got her hair in my mouth. 

_So good_. 

I'm a little scared of _so_ _good_. Because this summer has barely started, and it's already wonderful, and I can't think of anything being any better than this. I can't think of us sitting in a car and driving through America. I can't think of us leaving. Penny can't wait to leave, to start something new, to reach for the stars and burst through everything in her way. Because Penny knows what she wants. Penny always does. And Micah knows what he wants, too. Even Agatha knows. Everybody knows. 

And then there's me. And I don't know. I don't know anything. I never do. I don't know anything at all. And it hurts not knowing. 

I curl myself into a ball, and my hands crunch into fists, and I imagine that there's a shell growing around me keeping me safe for the night. 

Until it cracks open in the morning, and I'm bare. Helpless. 

 

 

**Baz**

I don't play the violin in the library anymore. It's one of the rooms that faces the garden. And currently, the garden is too crowded for me to look at while I play.

Three people is a crowd. 

I don't like others listening when I play. It feels too personal, as if I'm showing them too much skin, as if I'm being completely honest, bare to the bone.  

I end up playing in Fiona's room when she's out doing God knows what (galavanting?). It's the only room in the house that has so many things stuck to the walls - gothic rock band posters and empty egg cartons - that it's enough to make it soundproof. You can scream in there and nobody would hear. Which was probably the reason for why she'd sealed off her room in the first place. Fiona used to be a rascal. The cheap-thrills kind. She still is - but wiser, I think. In her own way. Sort of. 

Every time I play in her room I get distracted. I'll swing the bow up into the peak of a song, and then I'll just stare at the yellow 'NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS' tag sprayed across the black-and-white wallpaper peeking through the mess. There's too much in here to stay fixated to sheet music. 

I miss the library. I miss staring out at the lake and finding the right notes swimming on the murky surface. I miss outside. 

I used to spend every summer studying in the white porch swing out on the terrace, bright and wooden, closest to the green. My summers literally consist of my violin and studying. My father's expecting me to go to med school, keep the Grimm-Pitch name tied to the best hospitals in the country. My family is big in the medical world. The Grimms are a family of administrators and deans, and my father's head of the biggest local hospital. The Pitches are the surgeons of the family, the doctors, people who are important, people who save lives, people who are _needed_. My future is paved out, every little detail processed and polished - everything just waiting for me. It feels like I'm in the center of something paramount, like a whole entire bloodline is counting on me to do it and get it right, get it perfect. Because everybody else did. Sometimes, I don't know how I'm supposed to step into the shoes of people so big. I feel like my feet are too small. Like _I'm_ too small. Like I'll never get anywhere because I'll always be this kid in shoes that are too big and suit pants that keep sliding from my hips. 

I slump over my schoolwork and let my head fall into my hands. I wince, kick my foot against the side of the kitchen island until the chair I'm sitting on is one kick short from toppling over. Me with it.  

I wish I could just study outside on the terrace, feel the warmth, hear the trees and the bees, let all those pretty things distract me until the sun goes down. 

But instead of sitting outside, I'm cooped up in the kitchen. It's the closest I can get to the terrace with nothing but a wall in the way. I can see enough through the big windows unfurling between the cupboards. I can see a patch of the lake and the willow trees swaying over the surface, making it ripple. 

I can also see the curly-haired reason for why I don't want to sit outside - flailing around and just being the biggest distraction humanity has ever had the displeasure of enduring. He's been working on that flower path beneath the railing of the terrace for a whole entire week. I don't even know what he's doing, but I don't think it should be taking this long. 

He's loud. So loud. He groans and coughs, and his breathing is like listening to a jet blow through a wind tunnel. He keeps breaking things, too - _our things_ \- and I think he's knocked his head against the edge of the handrail more than I can count. And if I had thought that watching him trying to shovel out weeds was bad enough - I was wrong. Very wrong. Because watching him eat is a whole different kind of disaster. He inhales Daphne's sandwiches like he's got this chamber in his stomach that can carry a million kilos worth without a problem. 

He's a mess. He's everywhere. 

And when he rips off his shirt, and he starts bulldozing through the garden with tawny-wet skin - _it's so much worse._

If he weren't so goddamned nice to look at, this situation wouldn't be such a huge fucking problem. 

 

✕

 

Niall and Dev are already there, sitting on a pretty living room couch - in a mess of plastic cups and cigarette stubs, this chunk of inebriation. The whole entire house is vibrating like it's in the throes of something vicious. And bored rich kids. And techno. And green smoke.  

I don't even know who's party this is. But there's something about everybody's slicked hair and polished shoes that just scream St. Arlingtons. My school is the breeding ground for filthy rich disasters. The Pitches have been part of it since the beginning of time. So 'filthy rich disaster' is somewhat of a destiny. And tonight, I don't mind it. Tonight, I don't mind stepping into big shoes. 

I jump over the back of the couch and into the free space next to the boys. 

"Gentlemen," I say, smirking. 

"Baz." Niall shoots me a bored look. "You're late."

"Fashionably." I pluck the joint out of his hand and take a hit. And another. And another. My brain floats up towards the ceiling. I lean my head against the back of the couch, and I watch the world turn into a haze. Nothing but gibberish and beats. I smile. The first party of summer is always the best. Because everybody's got these ugly things pent up, waiting, lurking - _striking_. Finally. Maybe it's the thought of being unchained after the longest time in forever. 70 days of freedom. But it feels like you've got infinity to run and run. Run wild. Be stupid. Be awful. 

Niall snatches the joint out of my mouth and throws me a flask. I drink until I'm swimming in gold.

There's a girl in Dev's lap, red-headed, perky, riding him like she's at some goddamned rodeo. Her dress hikes up her hips, and his fingers dig into her thighs, pressure turning her skin from milky to blood-drained grey. 

I kick Dev's leg. Niall slams a hand against the back of his head. But the two of them keep snogging, swallowing their way into their mouths, latching. It's a mess. 

"Get a bloody room!" Niall roars, and then he's laughing, and I'm laughing. And nothing else matters. 

Dev and the girl eventually disappear upstairs, and Niall shouts, "Shag her brains out, Dev!" His voice is barely loud enough to overtrump the noise beating out of the crowd. It's like being in a mosh pit.

We don't talk much. We just sit there, watching the disaster build up towards midnight, getting high and stupid. I drink until I'm sloshy-in-the-gut and every boy in the room becomes the prettiest thing I've ever seen. The room turns, and the couch turns, too. And I'm smiling. I can't stop smiling. Because nothing else exists. Nothing outside of these walls can reach me. I am limitless. 

"She's single again." I hear Niall's voice through the haze. He's oozing over the couch. Everything about him is stretched out. Lanky. He looks at me. Dark eyes. Buzz cut. 

I'm so drunk I need to stop myself from reaching out and touching his head. 

"What?" I say. I sound slurred. I bet everything about me is melting out of context. 

"Agatha." He cocks his head towards the other side of the room, towards a blonde girl dressed in pastel. Pretty. Like a ballet slipper. Like a coral cloud. I've never seen her at St. Arlingtons. Probably because I don't pay attention to girls. 

"The blonde," Niall mumbles. The girl looks over - and then away. She cradles a red plastic cup against her chest and leans towards the girl she's talking to. Minty…or Magenta…or something ridiculous. I worked on a science project with her in Secondary. She's a neon pink airhead. But her tits are huge, so when Niall asked if I'd tapped that, I'd said yes. Just because. It's easier than saying I'm not into tits. Or girls. 

"Yeah? And?" I lean back, and I turn my head towards Niall.

He sucks at his joint, cheeks hollowing, eyes bloodshot, pinched to slits. He holds it, and his chest strains before he lets loose and breathes out. He coughs. 

"She's _single_."

"And your point is?"

"You complete fucking walley!" Niall looks like he's about to punch me. "Look at her. She's perfect. Literally perfect. Are we just going to sit here and stare at her all night!?" He says it like he's ignoring the fact that I was staring at the antique ceiling fan for the past half hour. Girls are the last thing on my mind. 

I roll my eyes and take another swig of whatever the hell Niall stole from his parent's liquor cabinet. It burns. That's all that matters. 

"Then go," I say. "Go do - _whatever_."

Niall looks at me like I'm off my trolley. The thing about Niall is that he'll act like he's badass without a conscience, but then when it really gets down to it, he runs. It's sad, really. He drove his mother's Ferrari into a tree and said it was Dev. Dev was sitting in the back. I was sitting in the passenger's seat. 

Niall's a piece of work. Mommy's perfect little boy. 

"Niall, just fucking talk to her."

I watch him try to melt into the couch. Fucking ridiculous. 

Agatha flicks her hair over her shoulder, dainty and breakable like she's barely been touched. Minty starts laughing, her bleached hair flying, and she bends so far down I bet the weight of the joke made her tits ten pounds heavier. Agatha doesn't laugh. There's something about the way she's looking at the ground that makes me feel uncomfortable. And then she pushes her way through the crowd and disappears around the corner. 

"Fine," I say. "If you're not up for it." I lift myself out of the couch, and my legs feel boneless. I walk into the same direction as Agatha. It's like I'm floating.

"Cheeky fucker!" Niall shouts. And I know I'm doing this to spite him. Make him hate me. Make him respect me. He's too easy. 

I weave myself through the groups of people, stumbling over polished shoes and mile-high heels and cigarette stubs scattered across the oriental rugs like confetti. Whoever lives here is going to have a crappy morning. 

There's a real moment where I think I might actually run after Agatha. But I wouldn't know what to do with her then. Talk to her? Ask her what she's doing in a place like this? 

But I have no intention of doing any of that. When I think of good things, it's mostly just the liquor talking. 

I stumble out into the driveway and walk all the way down to the street. It's star-paved, illuminated. I look for the Jag somewhere in the mess of shiny cars pressed against the edge of the street, the part that cuts into the forest. Someone's getting head between the foliage. I try not to look. 

I tug out the keys, press the 'unlock' button on the glowing display until I see taillights flickering, the red paint job glowing, a beacon. 

I jog towards it, skidding over my own feet, and I tug my phone out of my jacket. I dial his number. He picks up, breathing heavy. My stomach is hot.

"You here?" I ask. 

" _Where?_ " he asks. There's ruffling in the background. Clothes. 

"At the shindig." When I'm drunk, I think I'm funny.  I reach the car and get in, but I don't start the motor. 

" _I'm at Julie's_. _I said don't call me._ "

Everything he says feels like a gut-punch. 

"I fucking wanted to call you. So I called you."

" _She's sitting in the other room, Baz. You can't just - You can't just do this._ "

" _I_ can't do this? Does she know you're shagging a bloke behind her back?" I hiss into the speaker. 

He's quiet, just breathing. I want to hurt him. 

"My family's in Southampton for a wedding. They're staying there until tomorrow evening," I say, and my voice is cold. I don't tell him about Fiona. I don't know if she's home. And I don't care. I miss his skin. I'm drunk. And that's it. That's enough for me to not care. 

"Come over, Phillip," I say. And he breathes. 

I hang up before I let myself wait for an answer. I drive home with my foot jammed against the accelerator. 

  

✕

 

I hear the doorbell at five in the morning. I'm still half asleep, half drunk, stumbling down the stairs and ripping the door open. It's him. I don't look at him, not long enough to remember anything. I never do. All I know is that his skin is smooth, and his eyes are a shade of murky lake green. And they're always tortured. Always. 

We walk up the stairs and into my room. The curtains are closed, and no one will see. No one will ever know. 

I take my clothes off. He takes his clothes off. And then we're on the bed. 

It's routine. Systematic. Orderly. 

When I'm with Phillip, he's barely there. He's quiet and wary, and he looks past me - even when my eyes are inches away from his. 

Being with Phillip is the loneliest thing. He's a sad little secret I keep beside all of the others.  

But I still call him every once in a while - because he's the only person who's willing to hold me in the dark.

  

✕

 

Phillip rolls out of the bed first, and he sits at the edge, his bare back tensing. I don't touch him anymore. When we're done, we're done. Those are the rules.

But my head is still buzzing with something, red, warm. I want to reach out, but then he's standing up and walking towards his neatly folded pile of clothes. He laid them on the floor. His things never touch my things. It's my bed and my floor and my skin. And that's it. That's enough contact.

 

✕ 

 

I walk him to his car. It's the longest walk, even though it shouldn't be. It just feels like ages until we're standing next to the fountain in the driveway beneath the morning sun. He stops walking. I stop walking. I don't know what I'm doing until I have his wrist in my hand, brittle, and I tug him towards me. I kiss him. I've only ever kissed him once before. It was in the locker room after we won that lacrosse game against Julian's College. I remember the sweat and the smell of dirt - and that feeling of nothingness. 

And it's here, too. This insignificance. His mouth is dry and soft. And that's it.  I thought there would be more. 

He shoves me off. I look at my shoes. I hate him. Because it's not enough. He's not enough. He will never be enough. 

"Please, just - let's just stop," he says. But that's what he always says.

_"Please, let's stop this, Baz."_

_"Don't call me again, Baz."_

_"This was the last time, Baz."_

_"I have a girlfriend, Baz. I have a life. I can't let you mess it up."_

It's already messed up.  

I turn and walk back towards the house. My fingers curl into fists. I try to ignore the sound of his car roaring and the gravel crunching beneath the weight of the wheels. 

He drives off. I don't care. 

I'm almost at the door when I hear something smash. Like ceramic bursting. I snap towards the source of the sound. 

_Blue. Breathing. Stupidly brave. So loud._

_Gardener boy._

My mouth goes dry fast, and my brain whips itself out of a coma. He's standing next to a shitstain of a pickup truck. The remnants of a pot are scattered beneath his feet. His hands are stuck in the air like he's holding something invisible in front of his stomach. He's staring straight at me. And his head is a hue darker than the rest of his body, like all the blood is collecting in his cheeks and his forehead. Red. Burnt red. 

_Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. It's Monday. They're here on Monday. He saw. He saw it. He fucking saw it. Fuck!_

I don't have enough time to think until I'm charging towards him, my feet punching holes into the gravel below. 

And then I'm standing on the shards of a flower pot, and I'm looming over him because I'm taller than him, bigger. And he's not reacting. He's just staring up at me through those space dust curls. Blue peeking through. And he smells like earth and sweat and boy. And my head's droning. And maybe I'm still drunk or the hangover's getting ready to crouch in the middle of my brain - because I think he looks like the prettiest shade of flustered. I stare at the freckles on his nose. 

I don't know what I'm doing. 

"If you so much as breathe a word to anybody about any of this - I will end you." My voice is so low it scratches the bottom of my stomach. " _Gardener_ ," I add, and maybe I hate myself for it. 

There's a punch that rips through his body. I can feel it. A zing. He goes tight-taut, and he starts breathing with his mouth open. 

His hands come up - and he pushes me away. _He pushes me away._

I stop breathing. Just for a second. And there's this thing in my chest pounding against the bone, kicking, screaming. 

I don't know what I'm doing. He doesn't look like he has a clue, either. 

We're standing opposite from each other, balled fists, trying to look taller than the other, bigger. And I know I should be above all of this. I need to. I have to. 

But he's burning up. He's so much bigger than I'll ever be. 

The thought is a crack in my head. 

_You're just drunk. You're drunk. And tired. And your life is fucked up. That's all. That's all._

"Everything all right over here?" Someone says, scratchy and stained by too much cigarette smoke. It's that other gardener, the smudgy one, with the scruff and the limp posture. 

How do these people keep showing up out of the blue?

The boy swallows. It's the showiest thing. I watch his long throat bob for two whole seconds. Three. Then four. 

And then I'm turning my back, forcing myself not to run across the driveway and up the stairs. I slam the door shut once I'm inside, and I crash my spine against the wood. 

My knuckles burn up, ready to plow. I feel like punching something, hurting something, making something scream. Really, really hard.  

And the messed up thing is...I think I like it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm such a sucker for the whole 'filthy rich boy with a broken chest...longing for nothing but affection' thing <3 I know this is a super slow build, but it's so hard developing this kind of relationship (SOMETHING SHALL HAPPEN SOON I PROMISE)  
> Also, I love Penny and Micah. (And...Dev...is...a man whore...*cough cough*) 
> 
> Anywhooo, Hope you're having a wonderful day! See you soon :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Simon**

He kissed a boy.

And then he was going to kill me. I was sure he was going to kill me. People with good intentions don't look at you with knife-sharp stares and knuckles that are ready to wreck through the universe. 

He was so close _. So close._ And I didn't have enough time to process the mere fact of him being _so close -_ smoke and that sharp tang of alcohol - and then my hands were up in the air, and I shoved him away. 

He called me a _gardener_. Again. Like spitting it out once wasn't degrading enough. And I love being a gardener. There's nothing bad about doing what I do. But he can make a word mutate and turn it into something that makes your gut bubble. 

_Gardener_. 

And he sneered, too. The whole entire time. As if looking at me was causing him pain.  There was a very real second where I thought he was going to lurch forward and bite my neck raw and open - and just suck me dry, eat me alive. Like some cannibal vampire with bloodshot eyes. 

Eyes. 

His eyes. 

He kind of has nice eyes. 

Like a stormy mid-December day. The kind where you're sitting inside, and you're staring out of the window watching the trees quake bare, your air fogging up the glass. But you're warm. And that makes everything right. 

I punch the trowel into the dirt and grunt. 

It's unfair. Scary people shouldn't be allowed to have nice eyes. They shouldn't be allowed to play the violin, either.  And they shouldn't be allowed to kiss boys like that. Like it's the end of the world, and they're saying 'see you never again' with their tongues. And their teeth. And their hands. Big fucking hands. 

Bollocks. The universe is bollocks. Completely.  

I press a hand against my stomach. My cheeks prickle, and the feeling crawls down my chest, and then it's in my rib cage going _pang_. 

The only boy I've ever kissed was Harvey Blythe in tenth year. It was at his birthday party where everybody ran around with vodka in water bottles. I was moderately pissed, and he was pissed out of his mind, and the only reason we ended up in his parent's closet (ironically) - was because Penny said that experimenting is the best way to find out if I'm entirely, undoubtedly, exclusively, super, super into boys. Because apparently, feeling it was not enough. Penny wanted me to charge into the lion's den. 

Harvey Blythe tasted like vomit and spit, and his hands were sticky. He fell asleep mid-snog and started drooling all over my shoulder. I don't know if that's why I decided that I still liked girls. 

Boys and girls. Girls and boys. 

But I've never been kissed like it was the end of the world. Not by girls. Not by boys. Or boy. Just one time. _One traumatic time._

If watching from a distance made my stomach warm, I wonder what it must've felt like. But his boyfriend just drove off. At least, I think it was his boyfriend. Because they were kissing. 

And then I remember that this is the 21 st century, and that kissing means nothing. Which, I think, is terrible. Sometimes, I feel like this sad kid that thinks the grown up world works the way it does in picture books. Where everybody becomes a teacher or a fireman and holding hands is a sign for undying love and affection. Maybe that's why it didn't work out with Agatha, because I have this unrealistic image in my head about what loving someone is supposed to feel like. 

Like everything is nothing - until one person turns nothing into everything. 

I wipe the sweat from my forehead. It's that time of day where the sun's burrowed into the middle of the sky, burning, melting. I shift my weight onto my thighs and stand up. My head knocks against the handrail of the terrace. 

"Ah - shit," I grunt, slamming a hand against my temple. I don't know how I manage to keep doing that. My skull is one lumpy chunk of bruises. I mumble more swears under my breath, keeping my hand pressed against my head until the throbbing tones down. 

I look up at the kitchen window. I've tried to stop doing that, looking straight into it and seeing him - seeing me. 

He sits there every bloody day, hunched between a mountain of books, chewing on pens and tugging his hair back until his widow's peak is stretched across his whole entire head. He doesn't look so tense when he's reading or learning or doing whatever he's doing (ruining his summer by spending it cooped up in a kitchen?). His eyebrows relax, face going slack, and it's not so sharp anymore. Just sleek. Sometimes, he'll look up when I'm looking, and it's like his eyes pierce through the glass and nail-gun my head. And then I break something or slam my face into branches. Gracefully.  

He'll either roll his eyes or cock an eyebrow or sneer - or do all of those things at once and then leave. I wonder if he goes to play the violin. I'm still not sure if he's the one who plays it. But I like to pretend it's him. 

He hasn't been playing for a week, not loud enough for anybody to hear, that is. Maybe he's playing it somewhere else. The Grimm's house is definitely big enough. Maybe he's playing it in their catacombs. 

I keep telling Penny, but she just shoves her glasses up her head and starts jabbing my chest, shouting, _"Simon, for God's sake! Don't turn this into a Mr. Hodge situation!"_

As if this was anything close to a Mr. Hodge situation. Penny can't let the 'incident' go, and every time I'm moderately interested in something, she'll fling his name at my face. Mr. Hodge was my neighbor back in Primary. He was old and wrinkly. And I was convinced that he was a serial killer. He kept hauling lumpy sheets from the woods into his garage. It was always in the middle of the night. And the sheets were always stained red. I spent a year spying on him and keeping tabs, asking around. I even had an evidence board hidden in the back of my closet, the kind that my dad has at the precinct. I ended up breaking into Mr. Hodge's house through the kitchen window, and I set off an alarm. Subsequently, I had to wait in the living room of a serial killer until my dad came to fetch me. Turns out Mr. Hodge was just killing deers and butchering them in his basement. Which is fucking creepy. But Penny still thinks that me breaking into an old man's house is worse than said old man butchering innocent little creatures of the woodland. 

She thinks I might be spiraling down into a mania. But I'm not. This doesn't even come close to it. It's not like I'm going to break into this kid's house. Or start another evidence board. Evidence for what? That he's an arsehole? 

When Vera comes out to bring the sandwiches, I ask her what his name is. Just because. Maybe disliking him will be easier if I don't have to keep calling him Mr. Angry-brows in my head. 

I find out his name is Basilton (which is posh…and stupid), but she calls him Baz (which is less posh…but still stupid). He goes to the same school as Agatha, the fancy one in Southampton (because of course he would). He plays the violin (tragically). He's a complete bugger (with his head stuck up his arse). 

And he kisses boys (like it's the end of the world). 

This is not a Mr. Hodge situation. 

 

 

**Baz**  

He's probably a homophobe. He probably shoved me away because he thought my queerness would rub off - make him all gross, dirty him up. 

Sometimes, he stares at me through the kitchen window, and when I look up and stare right back, his head goes nuclear. Angry. As if he's appalled by me just looking. This is the 21 st century. He needs to get over himself. 

I know that I could just study somewhere else. The house is so big I could technically work in a different room every single day without having to use one twice. But  I don't.  I don't know what it is - what _he_ is. I just catch myself staring at him a little longer when he's looking, to watch his head heat up and his throat tense, bobbing.

So what if I like it. 

I like getting a rise out of people. It's entertainment, watching others ruffle themselves or choke just by looking at you. But getting a rise out of him is something different. It's like watching a volcano getting ready for an eruption. Like watching the sun tumble. Fire grows when you give it air. And I want to fling a hurricane his way. 

I'm messed up. I know I'm messed up. Because I'm watching him stumbling over his shovel and trampling over a flower bush - and I keep thinking about how I could make him punch me. 

 

✕

 

"You look very nice," Daphne says from the passenger's seat. She looks at me through the rear-view mirror, her doe eyes lined with gold and black. I don't answer. I just nod, the movement microscopic. She probably just doesn't know what else to say. She never does and neither do I. It's taut. It's always taut, and it feels like we're saying things while we're thinking about everything else. Like we're talking past each other. Straight through. 

She takes a breath, and I think she might say more, but she just touches up her red lipstick and smoothes down her gown spilling over her thighs. Black and sequined like a night sky. 

She looks nice, too. 

Then again, we all have to look nice. This is the Hampshire Health Annual Gala. This is where all the important people come out to stand in a gold-dusted ballroom - just to prove how important they are. It's practically some sort of rich version of show-and-tell full of people trying to outdo each other. 

Perfect. Primmed. Polished. 

My father walks around the front of the car to open the door for Daphne. She smiles, strained and pasted on, the prettiest mask. I take a deep breath.  And when I swing the backseat door open and step out, my back straightens, my head goes high. I smile. 

My face is a mask. 

 

✕

 

My father leads me through the ballroom, past groups of men wearing tailored suits and women in gowns that spill over the marble floor. I watch the chandeliers sway above my head, the glass illuminated, quivering with each note coming from the orchestra podium. It's like I'm in a room amongst the stars, gold and bright and burning.  Everything in here is part of something paramount, the center of a dynasty.

I feel so small, bones still growing, and I'm trying to be part of something I'm not. But that's exactly why I'm here, to make sure I'll be part of this one day. To make sure I'll stand in the middle of it all, wearing a tailored suit, a polished woman by my side, drinking champagne, showing and telling. Being important. Being bigger than I am. 

My father's hand is hard on my back, and I know he wants me to stand straighter, just like back then when I was a child. 

_("Spine high, boy. Sky-high. You are stone. You are marble. You are unshakable. Show it, Basilton. Show them all.")_

He weaves me through the crowd, stopping here and there, showing and telling. The prodigy. The Grimm-Pitch boy. 

I don't speak. I am not to a say a word. My father does all the talking, the manipulating, convincing everybody how I'm the pride and joy of the Grimm-Pitch family, how I'm going to do great things, big things. And I smile just as big as everybody else, like a porcelain doll in a glass box, face cracking.

And they all say, _"Just like his mother. He has it in him. Her."_

It's always her. Natasha Pitch. When these people look at me, that's all they see. And my father makes sure that's the only thing they will ever see.  Because I know it's the only thing he ever sees. Her in me. 

_Her_.

He loves to exaggerate. He loves to say how I'm the shadow of the greatest, most influential woman in England's medical history. And how her death wrecked the world. 

_This_ world, with important people who do important things. This gold-dusted, star-paved planet on the other side of the universe.

I look like her. Maybe that's the only thing that I have in common with my mother. Everything else is yet to be done. I'll go down the same career path. I'll learn the same things. I'll go to the same school. I'll work at the same hospital. I'll go to the same posh parties and smile the same fake smiles. Faker than mine is now. 

I'm supposed to be her replacement. Her stand-in. Except, I'm made of cardboard, and my lines aren't strong enough. 

My mother hung the moon. And you can't hang the moon twice, not when it's already up there, still and white, the loneliest thing. 

 

✕

 

I go home when my father is done showing me off. It's Daphne's turn now. She looks nice next to him, dark and flowing. And my father keeps her tight at his side, his white hair slicked back, suit cut sharp. 

She's a summer night. He's the coldest day of the longest winter. 

 

 

**Simon**

It's dark when I get back home, the rain splashing out of the night sky and flooding our front porch. Ebb and Nicky wanted to watch the game on the crackling telly down at O'Neil's. 2-0 for Manchester United. All I ate for dinner were crisps and a stout. Two stouts. 

But whatever I get at O'Neil's is better than what we have in the fridge. It's mostly just expired milk and chunks of cheese gone green. Nobody has any time to go to the grocery store, and when I finally do manage to stock up the fridge, the most of it is gone by the next day because my dad eats like crazy when he's working on a case. Which is always. So he eats like crazy. Period. There's no steady in between, no balance. Maybe that's where I got it from - the 'inhaling food' thing. It's just that sometimes you think about stuff, and your head is somewhere up in the clouds, and then you realize you've gobbled down a bucketload of sour cherry scones. I live for sour cherry scones. Ebb bakes them on the weekends and always gives me two batches because my dad loves them, too. 

I throw my duffel bag onto the kitchen table, and it knocks over a tower of newspapers and a cup of cold coffee. The exact same cup that has been buried into the mess on the table for days. I've given up on trying to keep this place clean. I don't like cleaning. I'm not the clean type. But this house is the very definition of a domestic disaster. I used to go through these random spurts of rage when I was a kid. And I'd just start vacuuming and scratching dried food from plates. But I don't touch anything anymore. Maybe it's because I've given up on caring. 

Sometimes, I hope my dad will crawl out of his office or come home from a long day of work, open his eyes for once in his goddamned life and realize that we've been living in a pig's stall. Maybe then he'll wake up to reality. Maybe then he'll be real, and he'll see me standing in the middle of a mess, being real. And he'll care. And he'll be sorry. He'll be really, really sorry. 

But I'm trying to give up on hoping for that to happen, too. I've given up on a lot of things in this house. 

I rummage through the scarce collection of groceries stacked up in the fridge, and I kind of regret turning down Mitali's care packages. She used to hand me mountains of Tupperware - breakfast, lunch and dinner - meals you could just pop into the microwave and be done with. She used to tell me they're for my father, too. And he was furious. He drove all the way to the Bunce's in the middle of the night, during one of his 24/7 cold cases, and he shouted at Mitali and told her to stop taking care of his son because he could do it himself. Penny told me everything the next day. 

It was the first time my father cared enough to actually do something. It was also the first time I broke a finger after jabbing my hand into a wall on purpose.

My dad told me to stop meeting up with Penny. He told me that four years ago. I just ended up spending more time with her, sleeping over and eating at her house whenever I could. 

The point is, I can be gone for three days in a row, and he wouldn't even call to check up on me.  Maybe I'm just too real for him. Too alive. 

I don't find anything edible in the fridge, so I slam it closed and stare at kitchen tiles until my eyes lose focus.  

"Simon?"

I swallow. I hold my breath. 

He sounds like he hasn't slept in ages. I don't turn to look at him, just keep staring at the floor. 

"Dad," I say. Or maybe it's just in my head, and I'm pretending I actually care enough to reciprocate. "We don't have anything to eat, so I'm gonna go out…to get something…Anything you want?"

_That's why you're here, right? Because you're hungry, and you know I can get you something to eat? That's it, right? You didn't come out of your office to just say hello. That's a little unrealistic. I know it is._

He doesn't say anything. I look up. He's leaning against the kitchen table, staring down at the mug lying in a puddle of coffee, the dark fluid pitter-pattering onto the tiles below. His hair has grown since the last time I've seen him. Which is a scary thought, because I know his hair doesn't grow very fast. It's sagging down his face, oily and caught in the beard that's covering up the hollows in his skull. 

He looks worn-out, wrung-dry, used one too many times. But when you spend 24 hours a day dealing with death and people killing people, I bet that's what you're supposed to look like. Like you're done, but you're forcing yourself to keep going. 

"No," he says, scratching his beard. It's the loudest sound. "No. No, that's okay."

"Okay," I say. But barely. It doesn't really sound like a word. I make my way towards the door, my feet heavy. 

"Simon." 

I stop. I wait. My breath feels hot in my throat. I'm facing the door. 

"You - you didn't tell me about Agatha," he says. I've never heard him say her name before. I didn't even know he knew that she existed. We don't talk about those kinds of things. We don't talk at all. 

I turn around slowly. He's looking at me with that stare, blue and piercing, examining the inside of my head. I bet he knows everything, and he's waiting for me to just say it out loud. 

"Actually," I clear my throat, "we - uh - "

"Broke up?" He scratches his beard again. I don't know if he's genuinely interested or just doing that cop-manipulation thing. 

"How do you -" 

"Dr. Wellbelove," he cuts me off. Because when he decides to actually talk to me, it's a one-sided conversation. 

"You know her father?"

"No, he just -" The blue in his eyes wavers, and he stops scratching his beard. "He came up to me at CJ's. And we just started talking."

He makes it sound like the easiest thing. Like he does it all the time. _Talking_. 

"Simon," he says, and it's as if it's a word he's never said out loud before. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I try not to look at him. The more I do, the more the heat beneath my skin starts to blister.  I know this is some sort of act. I know this is him trying to pretend that we're a normal family, that he's my father and I'm his son, and we don't act like we're two strangers living in the same house. 

"Because you didn't ask!" I didn't mean to make it sound so loud. My throat is throbbing. My fingers are curling up into my palms. I try not to let them turn into fists. Not here. Not in front of him. 

"I'm not supposed to ask. You're supposed to just - " His eyes flick from my face to the floor to my hands to my chest to the door to my eyes. And they stay there. Locked into position."You're supposed to just tell me, Simon." 

It sounds pathetic. This entire situation is pathetic. 

"I'm supposed to just tell you? Are you kidding me? Like you'd actually be willing to listen. Like you'd actually care about what I have to say." My voice cracks somewhere in the middle of every sentence, so I try to talk louder, and that just makes it worse. My hands are fists, tightening. 

"I do care, Simon!" He's raising his voice now, too, the tendons in his neck bulging. Red-angry. 

"Yeah." I nod. My eyes start to burn. "Yeah, I know. The only people you fucking care about are _dead_."

I know it hits him in the gut. I can see it in the way he tenses up, eyes snapping closed. 

I run out the door and drag myself onto my bike. I ride and ride and ride. Through the black-out. Through the nothing. It starts to rain harder. I ride through that, too. 

 

 

**Baz**

He's standing in the middle of the driveway when I get out of the cab and open my umbrella against the rain. 

He's standing in the middle of the driveway, in the middle of the night, in the middle of everything, drenched and dirty, hair sticking to his face, hands clutching the handlebars of a bike like it's a live wire.

I know I should say something, like 'What are you doing here?' or 'You look like shit. What are you doing here?' or just 'You look like shit.'

But I don't say a word as I walk past him in a big circle, as if I think he won't engage if I just stay as far away from him as possible. I listen to the crunch of my dress shoes on the wet gravel and the rain hitting the umbrella. The world sounds like thunder. 

I'm at the door when he shouts, "Hey!"

_Damn it._

I don't turn, just keep my back straight and my feet firmly on the ground. 

"Hey!" His voice comes closer, and I can hear him through the rain, the loudest thing. So loud. "Hey, Baz!"

_Baz_. 

I whip around, my umbrella swaying so far to the side that the rain hits my blazer. I tug it back into an upright position. 

_He knows my name_ , I think. _How the fuck does he know my name?_

There's this red thing ripping through my hands and my chest and my stomach, the same kind of red that I felt that time I shouted at him in the driveway. I don't know what it is. Anger? Panic?

_Thrill?_

The boy stumbles towards the stairs, tugging his bike over the gravel. It's dirt-stained. He's dirt-stained. He always is. 

We stare at each other so long my eyes start to burn. At least, I think he's staring at me. He could also be staring past me. It's too dark to see a damn thing. Except for his hair. Always bright. 

"Ebb, she - Ebb left her - um - trowels…in the garden."

" _Who?_ " It comes out as a spit, annoyed, tired. I narrow my eyes. Nothing he just said made any sense. 

"Ebb, the other - gardener. The one with the - " His hands come up and whirl around his head, and he keeps slicing his fingers over his shoulder blades. His bike falls to the ground. He stares at it. But he doesn't pick it up. 

"The blonde with the short hair?" I ask. 

He nods, and he kicks a foot into the gravel. His hands are fists, knuckles white, vibrating. He looks charged, loaded with something frenzied. 

"The fuck's a trowel?" Because I don't know what else to say. 

"It's like a - " His hands are in the air again, and it looks like he's holding something that's digging through the rain. " _Shovel_."

"So you came here in the middle of the night to get a _shovel_? You're working here tomorrow, aren't you?" I fling a hand towards him, and I don't mean for it to be so harsh, like I'm slicing him up. "You could've just gotten it tomorrow. It's raining. It's dark. What's wrong with you?" 

Bloody daft, this one. _Daft_. 

The boy angles his head low, and his shoulders come up like he's bracing for impact. Or getting ready to blow.

"I just wanted to come get them!" It's practically a yell. "I wanted to - I just wanted to get them! I just wanted to - " He stops. He breathes in, out, heaving. And then he charges towards the garden. 

"Hey! Where are you - "

"I'm getting the trowels!" He shouts. The earth shudders. I stare after him until he's a small shadow melting into that patch of nothing beyond the driveway. 

I stare at his bike. I stare at my shoes. I turn on my heels and slip into the house. 

I wonder what would've happened if I'd run after him. For what reason, I'm not sure. But I just wonder. Just for a millisecond. 

 

 

**Simon**

I stomp through the mud. It's dark and wet, and I think I'm sweating. Maybe it's the rage. The hot-angry stuff in my stomach. Burning. 

I didn't know where I was riding off to. I thought I was headed to Penny's, but then I was racing down Rhinefield lane thinking I was headed towards Agatha's, thinking I was going to go talk to her, finally, completely - but then I swerved into the Grimm's driveway. 

And of course, Mr. Angry-brows was going to be hot on my heels in a cab. Of course, he was going to step out into the headlights wearing a suit. Of course, he was going to look like the man in the moon. 

And of course, I was going to be standing there, wet and sad, drenched in mud, just hating everything and being stupid. 

_Stupidstupidstupid._

And now he thinks I'm thick as a brick. If he doesn't think that already. Because somehow he keeps showing up in the worst possible moments. He only ever sees me knocking my head into things or breaking flower pots. 

Anger turns me into a special kind of stupid. The kind of stupid that forces me to drive to some arsehole's house to pick up trowels that Ebb wanted to go get tomorrow. In the morning. In daylight. When it's warm and dry.  I didn't even bring my phone, so now I'm just stumbling around in the dark, groaning, cursing, kicking at anything that my feet can reach. 

I end up sitting in the mud…hating my life. 

Lights turn on in the mansion, the one in the kitchen and the one in the living room. A shadow appears at the terrace door, slim and broad-shouldered. 

"I've got your bloody shovels!" The shadow shouts.

_Fuck_.  

I stumble towards the terrace, and it feels like some sort of walk of shame. 

"Vera found them and brought them inside," Baz says. He sort of looks undone. His hair is falling out of its slicked-back shape. He's not wearing his blazer anymore, and his dress shirt has been tugged out from under his pants, cuffs undone, the sleeves folded up to his elbows. He's barefoot. 

I don't say a word when I take the trowels and press them against my chest. They're caked in dried mud and grass, but I don't care. I just tighten my grip around them. Baz scrunches his eyebrows. There's a sneer tugging at his slim mouth. 

_Yeah, well. Whatever._

I look at the floor. And he looks at me. I think. My forehead starts prickling. And when he closes the terrace door and disappears, so does the light that spilled across the wooden deck. I'm in the dark again, and it's raining harder. Too hard. A lightning bolt rips through the sky. I've barely counted to two when the thunder rolls over the house.  I decide to wait for the storm to calm down out on the porch swing. 

_This sucks_ , I think. _This sucks, sucks, sucks._

My cheeks go hot, prickly, and my eyes start to leak. I'm crying. It's pathetic. 

_This sucks. This really, really sucks._

 

 

**Baz**

He's still here. Why is he still here? 

I came back down to the kitchen for something to eat, and when I turned on the lights, something on the porch started to burn. 

His hair. 

Even when it's wet, it's fizzing. Bronze. Bright. Venus. Mars. 

I rip the terrace door open, and I'm so ready to shout at him to get lost. But then he lifts his head, and his eyes are red, and there's snot dripping out of his nose. He looks so goddamned pathetic. Like a stray dog.  He snaps his head down and rubs his face until its dark red. He's just making everything worse. He sniffles, coughs, and it sounds like he's choking on air.

"Fuck off," he says. His voice is so crumbly I bet the tiniest breeze could make it disintegrate. 

"I should be the one saying that. So how about you fuck off," I say, and I know it's mean and immature. But he's being mean and immature. And now he's crying harder, and it's like listening to something die. Painfully slow. 

"You're getting dirt on the cushions," I point out. And that wasn't any better. 

The boy sniffles for a second and looks at the trowels in his lap. He slides down and plops onto the wooden deck.  And then he's crying again. 

"Bloody hell," I breathe and run a hand through my hair, holding the strands, tugging. 

I know I should technically be enjoying this. This is the demise of another human being. A breakdown. A downfall.  It's pleasing. Amusing. It should make me feel better about myself in every way possible.  But I don't feel better while I watch this kid tug his knees up to his chin. Bawling. 

I like seeing him angry. But I don't think I like seeing him sad. 

It's a stupid thought. But then I'm fetching a horde of towels from the guest bathroom and dumping them over his shoulders. I'm kind of helpless. For a second, I think he might actually calm down - but he doesn't, and he's back to blubbering. This is worse than when Tybalt cries, and Tybalt's barely nine months old. 

The boy blows into a towel that's slumped over his face. He sort of makes me want to cry, too. But I'm a man. And I do not cry. Ever. 

I ask myself what my life has come to once I'm standing in the kitchen making sandwiches for a sobbing stranger. I end up making six.  He eats all of them in one inhale. Apparently, stuffing him is the only thing that'll calm him down enough so he can breathe properly. I watch him from where I'm leaning against the terrace door. I wonder what's hurting him so much. I wonder if it's a _who_. And I wonder how you can do something like this to a boy like that. 

_A boy like what?_ I ask myself. But I don't know the answer. Just the question. And it's there, waiting for me to figure it out. 

He tugs the towels from his head and uses them to wipe his face. He's flushed, heaving, breathing so loud. He reminds me of a little bird with a quivering chest. 

Like the warbler that flew against the kitchen window on my eight birthday. The impact broke one of  its wings. And my mother rushed out and cradled the little thing in her hands. _'Is it going to die, mum?'_ I asked. And she said, _'Yes, but we're not going to let it.'_

She took care of the bird until it could fly again. Because that's who my mother was. She wanted to fix the whole entire world. 

_'Because the ones that are hurt, are the ones most deserving of another chance, Basilton.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Simon is a sensitive little coco puff. Baz has a soft spot for sensitive little coco puffs. *sighs*
> 
> Haaaave a great day :)


	5. Chapter 5

Penny's missing. 

Premal's getting anxious. I'm losing my goddamned mind. 

It's a cool summer night, windy enough to blow away the sweat pricking my forehead. I'm smashing my feet into the pedals of my bike, and all I can hear is the rush in my head and the air in motion, my heart, too, thumping away in this jumble of sound. Loud, loud, loud. 

_Penny, you plonker! You utter plonker! What the fuck are you doing!?_

Premal called me at two in the morning, all fidgety and awkward, asking whether Penny was at my house. The last place Penny would ever be - would be at my house. Nobody's at my house. My house is this little cardboard box at the end of Hillstedt road, squashed between the woods and a handful of other cardboard boxes. Sad and small and patched up. Deserted. I only sleep at my house, and that's it. I live everywhere else, just not where I'm supposed to.

It's unlike Penny to just disappear. Because she'd tell me. She'd tell me she was going to vanish into thin air, and she'd tell me to pack up an extra pair of underwear and my toothbrush, because if Penny were to disappear, she'd take me with her. That's the promise we made to each other when we were in kindergarten. 

_If you leave, I leave._

We used to dream about it all the time. About us packing our things in the middle of the night and riding our bikes past the ends of the earth. It seemed like the simplest thing. Leaving. Disappearing. Being a memory from one day to another. Being real somewhere else. 

But when you grow up, everything changes. At least, it did for me. Leaving isn't so simple anymore. And neither is staying. And neither is everything else. Because I'm riding through town at what-the-fuck-o'clock in the morning, tired and loaded, hoping I'll see red hair ripping through the dark. 

When we were kids, it didn't occur to us how messed up the rest was going to be. 

"Plonker, plonker, plonker," I mumble under my heaving breath. 

Penny's smart, rational. She's the voice of reason, the one who always knows where to start, what to do. The brains of every operation. She's brave, too. Ridiculously. Penny's a knight in shining armor. She slays dragons and saves damsels in distress - with her confidence in verbal confrontation and ginormous mouth and ginormous brain. 

Penelope fucking Bunce doesn't just disappear. She's not a runner. She's a run-towards-something-and-charge.  

So I'm freaking out. More than just a little. A little a lot. 

Her parents are out of town for the weekend, so Premal's supposed to take care of the rest of the family. But he's shit at that. He's a control freak, and control freaks can't take care of a litter of loonies. Penny's usually the one who keeps everything in order. Premal just wanks off in his room…or something. 

I ride down Burreys street, past O'Neil's and little groups of drunkards oozing into the cracks of the cobbled roads, loud, glass clinking, voices drenched. It's Friday (technically Saturday). Burreys street is as hammered and alive as ever. 

If you're from Brockenhurst, you can drink any other town in Hampshire under the table. Brockenhurst is a drinker's town, the heftiest, the dirtiest. That is if you're not from the outskirts anywhere near Rhinefield lane, upper crust and posh and drinking pastel-pink rosé from glasses carved out of diamonds. Way Downtown, it's pint after pint, flaking bar stools and cigarette stubs in puddles of cheap liquor. And it smells like smoke everywhere you go. It's muck in the air, constant like bad English weather, making your eyes water and your lungs fade faster. You learn to get used to it. You learn to like it. Love it, even. 

Just not right now. 

I check the bars, the alleyways, any food joint that's open. I ride to Mrs. Applewhite's bookstore, because I know Penny has about three separate keys, and sometimes she'll sleep in the reading corners when her family won't give her any room to breathe. 

Brockenhurst is small, squashed, every house crushed against the next. It's so dense you can hear your neighbors breathe. It's hard keeping secrets in a place that's practically transparent. Everybody knows everything about everybody else. 

And yet, I can't find Penny. No inferno hair. No Halloween costume witch glasses. No candy apple cheeks. 

It's stupid, but for a second, I imagine that she did break her promise, that she left without me. 

I ride towards the outskirts of town, towards Agatha's, and I think about calling her, maybe cycling up to her house and asking her for help. She would help. I know she would. Without a second thought. But I'm scared of facing of her. I'm scared of finally talking to her, being there and honest, being real. I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think neither of us are. Agatha's this itch at the back of my brain, and I'm trying to ignore it. 

I ride down the narrow road that branches off Rhinefield lane andleads back to town in a big ribbony circle. Hickory road. It's the prettiest thing during the day, the one-lane dirt road cradled by chestnut trees, a strip of green and dandelions sprouting in between the tire tracks. I've got the LED light of my bike switched on, this weak pillar of white scaring away the dark, shining across dirt and stones and lonely dandelions. The road gets bumpy, and my arms start to itch. I pedal faster. I don't know where I'm headed. Back to town? To Penny's?

The wind is louder out here, pounding, whipping, roughing me up. I'm almost at the old church. I can hear the music, crackling beats probably coming out of car speakers, sloshy laughter, shouts and screams. The old church on Hickory road isn't some holy property where you're closer to God. It's just an empty building where kids drink themselves stupid and dance over the graves beyond the fences. When you grow up in this town, the old church turns into some nightmare your parents don't want you to get involved with. Penny's mum used to warn us about the (non-existent) goth community doing their devil worshipping at the altar, virgin sacrifices and stuff, and that on Halloween they butcher rats and spray the blood above the graves to resurrect the dead. 

The truth is kids just get pissed, graffiti-up the walls and break whatever's breakable. There's even a rumor that if you're unmarried and you shag someone between the pews, satan will bestow you with good fortune just for messing with the guy in the sky. 

The old church is a mess. An upside-down crucifix. Corrupt. 

There are a couple of kids stumbling around the gateway when I drive past. I see metallic red flash in my periphery. 

Metallic red and little lightning bolts. 

_Penny's bike._

"Fucking plonker," I hiss under my breath, ripping the handlebar to the right, my feet skidding onto the ground, the breaks screeching. 

I text Premal that he better come as fast as possible or I'll punch him in the dick.

I let my bike fall next to Penny's and rush through the winged gate, crooked and wrapped up in furry green. 

Penny thinks the kids that hang out at the old church are _"brainless twats who think social status is defined by how many shots you can down without having to throw up"_. 

And yet, she's here, in the last place I would've gone looking for her. Which is why she probably came here in the first place. 

There's a group of cars parked in front of the church, the headlights hitting the stained white walls, illuminating the spray paint, layers upon layers of words and images and memories of a million midnights. 

You can see the stained glass of the windows shining trough the paint, nuns and preachers on their knees covered by _fck NANCYS cunt, welcome to the underworld_ and _HARRXY LUVS JULIE_ spread over Jesus nailed to the cross _._ Someone even managed to spray a pentagram on the big bell dangling up in the church tower. 

We Brockenhursts are fucked up like that. Completely mental.

I push my way past groups of kids standing around in circles, the car radios on full blast, every single one switched to the same station. It's techno, the kind that turns your head into a haze and your ears into earthquakes. 

I stumble through the headlights, everything blinding-white, loud. And all I can think of is _red, red, red._ And _curly_. And _wild_. 

I spot Penny by a big Jeep, a bottle in her hand, attention strained against some guy that's built like a bulldozer. She's got her hair tied up into a ponytail, this exploding puff of red on her head. I recognize her pajama bottoms, the bright yellow color and the white stripes. They're too big, and the material droops over her sneakers. She must've just climbed out of bed and straight out of the window with nothing but a tiny jacket to cover her up.

_Fucking plonker._

My feet crush into the damp grass below, the squelch of my sneakers louder than the music. I'm charging towards her, heat in my head, heat in my mouth. 

I'm so relieved I'm angry.

" _Penelope_!" I shout. She whips her head towards me as if struck by a punch. The boy in front of her turns towards me, bulking up like he thinks he's got something to defend. 

"Out of my way, tosser," I say as I jab him aside and grab Penny by her arm. The boy doesn't move, all still and big as a rock. Probably just as dense as one. 

"Simon! What the - _Let go_!" Penny tries to pull her arm into the opposite direction, her feet skidding, trampling like some kid that doesn't want to go to bed. I can smell the sour tang on her. Beer and smoke and someone's cologne. 

Some boy starts howling and clapping in the Jeep's headlights, lanky, buzz-cut. "Sorry there, Dev!" he shouts. "Looks like your redhead's already being shagged!" 

"Was a bitch anyway!" the bulldozer-boy says. It sounds like a bark. Rabid. 

Penny goes taut between my fingers. She tries to rip her arm out of my grip, but I've got her, and I'm not letting her go. 

"What did you just say!?" she screeches. "Say that again, and I'll rip your knickers through both of your eyeballs, Dev!"

The boy with the buzz cut whistles. "Feisty one!"

_Fucking idiots. All of them. Fucking idiots._

I pull Penny towards the gate, but she's leaning into the other direction, towards a dark patch behind the row of cars. She stops fighting in front of a lonesome grave, a cross misled out of rock. 

_In Memory of Dorothea Barlow 1854-1882_

I grab Penny by her shoulders and tug her towards me. Her hair blows out of its confinements, and now it's one giant curly chunk of red set on fire. 

"What the hell were you thinking?" It comes out angrier than I wanted it to. I'm happy she's here. I'm happy I've got her. 

Penny rips her glasses from her face and wipes a hand across her skin until it's almost as red as her hair, flushed and blotchy. I don't know if she's about to cry or if she's about to get ready to charge at me and strike a punch. Which she has done in the past. Twice. Her hook's better than mine. 

"Penny," I say, a little softer this time. "What's wrong? Why didn't you call? Why did you come - " I stare at the church, frozen, a dear in the headlights. " _Here_? Why did you come here?"

She sniffles. She's not crying, though. She rubs her nose with the back of her hand and looks up at me through thick strands of hair falling over her face. Tendrils. Corkscrew curls. 

"Dev said there'd be alcohol," she mumbles, and it's coherent enough for me to know she's not drunk. Just angry. 

" _Dev_?" I spit out his name. "That guy? Did you - I mean, did you and him, did you,I - "

"What? No! Simon, of course not. Are you mad!? Dev's an utter nincompoop!" Penny smacks the words straight into my face.

"Yeah, I know," I say, chest heaving. "He bloody looks like one. So what the hell were you _doing_ with him?"

"Oh, I don't know, Simon! Talking perhaps? Is that such a fucking crime?" Penny's cheeks are glowing in the dark, nuclear, and it's fuzzing up her hair. Her head's just one hot blob. 

"Why? Why are you here? Premal called me and said you were gone!"

"Why are you freaking out? I'm fine, okay? I'm fine!" She shoves her glasses back onto her nose. Her breathing calms down, the color in her cheeks fading just the tiniest bit. "I used to -" She swallows "I tutored him in chemistry, okay? He's been trying to invite me to all sorts of places…just so I'd sleep with him. And I - I really, I just really wanted to get out of the house, and he said he'd be here, and he'd have some stuff to drink, and I just - So I went. Because, because I just wanted to do something utterly, inexplicably, thoroughly moronic," she rambles in one exhale. She leans forward, and I think she might actually punch me - when she groans and plops her head against my chest. "I got into a fight with Micah." 

And everything makes sense. 

I grab her head between my hands and pull her up to my face. Her eyes look like planets up close. 

"Jesus fuck, Penny!" I breathe, and it feels like the world is a little less messed up now. "Why didn't you - Couples fight, Penny! And you and - I mean, the two of you have gone through the craziest shit! And it's worked out. It's always worked out. You're fine, Penny. You're both fine. Shit. I thought you lost your mind or something."

"Simon, I _have_ lost my mind!" she says, and her eyebrows scrunch towards the middle of her face. 

I hate to see her so sad. I hate to see her angry, too. I hate to see her anything but happy. If it were up to me, I'd make sure her face was the sun as long she'd live. But the real world doesn't work like that. 

"It's different this time. All of it," she says, and her breath is sour. 

"Why didn't you call? Why didn't you - "

"Because I didn't want to." 

And _that_ feels like a punch. It's more real than an actual punch. 

_Because I didn't want to._

That's something she's never said to me before. Everything between us is out in the open. There is no 'I didn't want to'; there's just 'I will, I have to, I need to'.  There are no secrets between us. But I'm still stuck in the head of an eight-year-old me, thinking the world is easier than it is, thinking everything's perfect and everything will stay that way. The same way. Always. 

Penny squeezes her fingers under her glasses to rub at her eyes. She sniffles. She's not crying. Yet. I don't ever want to see her cry. 

"You're two peas in a pod, Penny. The two of you. Whatever it is, you'll be fine. Because you always are."

" _We're_ two peas in a pod," Penny says, her voice scratchy-gurgly. She twitches a finger between our chests. 

"Yeah, but I mean, we - I mean, that's different! You and Micah are partners in the binary-star-pea system, orbiting, like, the same intergalactic pod cycle! You're two peas in a pod in the sky, like, you know, in the galaxy."

Penny scrunches her eyebrows together, the way she does when she thinks my mouth is doing that word-vomit thing. "You and me are two peas in a pod on earth, you know? Down here. Way down." I stomp my feet into the mud below. I don't think I can make much sense. I don't think I ever do.  I nudge Penny's glasses into an upright position. Her eyelashes are clumpy with upcoming tears. 

"Whatever it is, Penny, the two of you will be fine. I swear. To God." I fling a hand towards the church, and it feels terrible. Penny coughs up a tiny laugh, a sad little sound that's missing the spark that makes a laugh a laugh. 

If there are two people that can pull themselves out of any chaos, it's them. 

It's got to be them. Because if it's not them, then who? It needs to be them. They make so much sense. They make me believe in something that I shouldn't be capable of believing in. If they go wrong, the whole entire world goes wrong. If they go wrong, I wouldn't know what else to believe in. And I know it's stupid and childish - but I am stupid and childish. And I want them to be together the way I want the Tooth Fairy to be real or love at first sight or life after death. 

Penny wraps her arms around my neck and digs her face into my chest. She's breathing hard. I'm breathing hard, too. I hug her back, try to press away all the bad things, squeeze them out, make them evaporate with my body heat. 

"You're going to be fine, Penny. Fine. You're going to be fine," I mumble over and over again.

It's the first time I'm not really sure. 

 

✕

 

We stand next to the grave of Dorothea Barlow, clutching and mumbling, until Premal shouts our names. He's louder than the music coming out of five cars at full blast. When he cares enough, he can be louder than a banshee.  Premal grabs Penny by her shoulders when he spots us, his nostrils flaring, his hair curlier than usual, like he's been ripping at it. 

"I'm here with the Smart, so could you - "

"It's okay. I'll take her bike. See you in half an hour, yeah?" I cut him off. I still can't believe he bought himself a fucking Smart. Like Brockenhurst doesn't need another reason to think the Bunces are bonkers. 

Premal nods, his curls bobbing. 

"Okay," he says. His voice is hard. "Thanks." 

He pulls Penny through the small crowd gathered in the headlights, and I watch Penny's inferno hair disappear in the shadows. Everyone's staring. The headlights aren't helping. 

"You know, if I were you, I'd keep my little whore girlfriend under control," someone says. And I know that voice. I've heard it shout and growl and hiss. Blade-smooth with a little scratch in it when it travels too low. I turn around, and I see him standing next to the bulldozer-boy, Dev, and that lanky kid with the buzz cut. Baz looks as out of place as ever. Too clean. Too sharp. Like a knife polished to a mirror-finish.  His hair's slicked back, glazed. He looks so much bigger than all of them. 

"You shut your fucking mouth!" I say, barely a growl, just low, like I'm ripping the words out of my gut. 

I don't let myself watch him cock his eyebrow, and I turn towards the gate and fight my way through the small crowd. 

I haven't seen him since that night I blubbered around on his terrace. I can't believe I thanked him. I can't believe I almost thought he was nice. 

He saw me cry. 

I rip Penny's bike and mine from the ground. I've never really been on a bike whilst steering another. And I'm not really sure if you can call it 'bike towing'. And I'm too loaded to try, so I just drag the bikes down the road, my feet smashing holes into the dirt. 

I hear shouts coming from the church and someone yelling, "Yeah! You fuck him up, Baz! Knock him out!" and "Kick him in the balls!". 

_Shit_. 

I move faster, everything stumbling and skidding, the bikes wobbling on either of my sides. 

"Hey!" It's him. He's shouting. 

I walk faster. Penny's bike falls to the side. 

"Shit," I hiss, bending down to rip it back up, but then my bike topples over, and a pedal hits my shin, and - " _Shit_!"

"Hey! Gardener!" 

And that just does it. I whip around, shin throbbing, stomach leaking angry-red. 

"What? D'wanna kick me in the balls? Do it! Kick me in the balls, Baz! I've had a real shit night, so getting kicked in the balls wouldn't make much of a bloody difference!" I'm yelling. I can feel my voice in my skull, droning, like an eruption. 

It's too dark to see him. All I can make out is a slim shadow wearing polished hair. I can hear his steps, the crunch of his shoes on the dirt. I count them to ten - eleven - twelve. 

"Look, just - I was serious," he says, and the tone reminds me of that night on the terrace when he asked me if I was still hungry. "Take better care of your girlfriend. It's nasty out here, you got that? And Dev's a…an animal." There's no gross undertone, just a hint of a sneer tearing at the words. 

I don't know how close he is. All I can make out is his breathing. Early morning ocean tides. In and out and in and out. 

"She's not my girlfriend," I say. And I don't know why I'm talking. I should be picking up the bikes, hauling them over my shoulders and running, running until my feet give up. 

But I don't. I just forget to breathe. It's quiet. It's just him and the air coming out of his lungs - and me listening. 

The angry-red has faded in my stomach, and now there's this other color in there, and I don't what shade it is. It's still angry. But just a little. I can't make out the rest. I swallow. I turn around. My feet hit the bikes, and I bend down to drag them back up. Baz is still there, motionless, waiting. I don't know what for. 

I'm walking away from him when he says, "Are you okay?"

It feels like this rip in my chest, like he flung a harpoon at me, and he's tugging me back. 

"I mean - now? I mean, after - " Quiet. Just his ocean-tide breath. "I mean after, you know…that night. Are you okay now?"

I'm not sure if this is just another messed up way to get at me. I'm not sure if I should answer, either. Maybe I just imagined him saying that. But I wouldn't know why I'd imagine some spoiled arsehole to show any concern. I know his type. I've been to enough posh Christmas parties with Agatha and her parents to know his type. 

Bored and rich and angry. 

And the bored-and-rich-and-angry type doesn't even know what concern sounds like. The bored-and-rich-and-angry type doesn't make sandwiches for strangers or hand them towels or ask them if they're still hungry. 

Bored and rich and angry. 

Maybe I'm not so sure what Baz is. I just wonder what he is when he's not busy acting like an arsehole. 

He's still standing there, waiting for an answer that I don't know if I want to give him. 

"Sometimes I think so," I say, finally, and I stop for a second. But I shake it off and keep walking. I can hear him walking, too, back to the old church. Back to the messed up kids and the spray-painted graveyard. 

I bite my bottom lip so hard it hurts, and I hate myself for opening my mouth. 

"It's Simon. Not gardener," I shout. 

"Simon," he shouts back. Steel-sharp. "I still prefer gardener."

My stomach churns. 

 

✕

 

The sun's coming up when I slip into Penny's room, the light peeking through the thick orange curtains, everything tinged with something warm. Penny's room always looks like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Even in the middle of the night or at five in the morning. Her hair is spilling over half of her bed, and she peeks up at me. Smiling. Just a little. 

I crawl onto the mattress and nudge her head to make some space. She groans and rolls to the side, pulling the blankets with her, a jumble of pillows flopping onto the floor. I tug a blanket out of her grasp and wrap my way into it. Soft and chocolate-y and kitchen-herb-ish. The world smells like her.

I worm my way closer, so close our noses almost bump. 

"Hi, you plonker," I whisper. 

"Hi," she whispers back. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I'm the biggest plonker ever."

"Not as big of a plonker as I am."

"True." She lets out a sound close to a giggle, just enough spark in it to tickle my ears. I smile. 

"I let Dev flirt with me." She stops giggling, and her eyes pan lower, straining against my chin. "I let him. Dev's an idiot. He thinks the Apollo moon landing was fake, and he has these ridiculous conspiracies about how it was just some evil plot to demobilize the Cold War. That doesn't even make any sense. Literally not at all. I bet he doesn't even know what the Cold War was. I bet he doesn't even know how to spell Apollo." Her voice thins out into something barely existent, tiny. "Micah can ramble down every event of the Cold War in chronological order. With the dates and everything. Like, the whole entire thing, Simon. The day and the month and the year. He knows everything. He knows everything. Always. He always does. And sometimes it's too much, you know?" Penny's just breath now, just warm air. "Sometimes, it's too much, because I know he's right, and I don't want him to be. Because it's too much. Too much…It's everything with him. It's never just - it's never just one little thing. It's everything at the same time, and it drives me - " She clamps her mouth between her teeth. " _Bloody mad._ "

I don't think she's talking about the Cold War anymore. 

"Being in love sucks," she says. "Being a teenager sucks, too. Generally, _being_ sucks. Just being here. On earth. It sucks." She crunches her eyes closed, her eyelashes clumping up. I jab a finger into the bundle of wrinkles on her forehead, and I smooth them out. Penny opens her eyes. 

"Yeah, well. That's just the way it goes," I say. "It just does, and you just have to…sort of…hang on."

Penny's right in front of me. And she's sad. And I hate it. 

"I got into Cambridge," she says. "Scholarship. My parents want me to go right after school. They don't want me to go to America. At least…my mom doesn't. And my dad, he just goes with whatever she says. Like always. Like bloody always. And Micah," she sucks in a puff of breath and pours it out into the next sentence, "he wants me to listen to them. Like he's not on my side. All I want is for him to just - be on _my_ side. Mine. He's supposed to be."

I pull Penny against my chest, and I dig my nose into her hair. There's something in me, stirring, a feeling, a sense. As if something is being lifted from my chest to let the air in. 

What if Penny stays in England? I would stay in England with her. Because of course I would. Where Penny goes, I go. That's how it's always been. It's an unspoken rule. 

We wouldn't leave. We wouldn't disappear. We would stay here.

And I hate myself for not wanting to be on her side for the first time in my life. 

_Go to Cambridge, Penny,_ I think. _Let's stay. Please. Let's just stay. Because maybe then I wouldn't have to figure things out. Maybe then I could stay clueless for a little while longer._

_Maybe then I wouldn't have the urge to go find the woman who left me stranded in the middle of nowhere._

 

 

**Baz**

I'm lying on the floor of the library, under my mother's grand piano. I stare up at the wood, trace the construction with my eyes and my fingertips. I imagine I can hear it playing, tinkers and tunes, the piano vibrating and turning the world into nothing but sound. When I was small, I used to crawl beneath it whenever she started to play. I liked staring at her bare feet pressing the pedals down with that gentle _thunk_. I used to be small enough to lie right in the middle, right under the sound board and the treble bridge, right in the heart of it. And I used to close my eyes and pretend I was inside the safest place on earth. Under the grand piano. Next to her bare feet. 

I haven't crawled under here for years. I feel tiny. Foolish. The floor is cold, and the wood above is dusty. I turn to my side and press my cheek against the floor, the feet of the bookshelves coming into view. 

This whole entire week I've been doing nothing but procrastinating. I haven't been able to get myself to sit down and slam my face into my schoolwork. I can't be still for more than two minutes, and I've been crawling into nooks and crannies I don't even fit it in. It's like I'm trying to hide from - _everything_. And every time my dad knocks at my door to ask how my work's going - which is once in every forever - I have to mentally punch myself to not yell, "FUCKING SMASHING, FATHER! FUCKING SMASHING!"

There's this itch in me, this beckoning nuisance, and I can't reach it. Whatever I do. I can't. And it's laughing at me, pointing its little fingers, getting off on riling me up. 

I squirm around on the floor, punch my fists into the wood above. Dust comes trickling down into my open mouth. I cough. I sneeze. _What am I doing?_

I roll out from under the piano and spread my limbs out like a star. Or a snow angle. Or an idiot. I watch the chandelier above sway back and forth and back and forth, the prettiest pendulum, glass quaking, little tinkers. 

I want to do something. I need to. I'm prickly all over, stinging, high-pitched. 

"Simon." I say his name. "Simon." I say it again. 

The itch is getting headier, traveling upwards, a zing in my skull. 

_Simon. Simon. Simon._

What if it was his girlfriend? Or what if he likes her, and he wants her to be his girlfriend? Why do I care? Why? 

Because. Just because. 

Penelope or something. She's a Bunce. The whole entire family's kooky. She used to tutor Dev, and I remember seeing her at his house sometimes, small and chubby, and at the time, her hair was straight and bright blue. Dev's been trying to get into her pants since he was thirteen. Which is utterly ludicrous, because her brain is out of his league. 

She has red hair now, so red it burns your eyes. And she's creamy-soft and sweet with a bite, and I get why boys would like that. I get why the gardener would like that. 

I stare down at my chest. And my stomach. And my bare feet. I'm all hard angles. Even my voice has hard angles, sharpened edges, spiked corners. I called her a whore. In front of him. I called her a whore, and I watched him burn. It's like the birth of a star every single time. He can make the atmosphere ten times hotter, a hundred times, a billion. 

I don't know why I opened my mouth in the first place. I just wanted him to blow up. I like seeing him implode. I like the image of him setting himself on fire. 

_I like it._

Because I'm disturbed, ask anyone. 

And maybe I didn't like the thought of him with that girl. He cared enough to come get her in the middle of the night. He cared enough to shove Dev. Nobody shoves Dev. 

Maybe I just don't like the thought of Simon at all. 

Especially, when he makes my voice soft. It felt like I wasn't even speaking, like I could barely feel the words because they weren't sharp enough,weren't cutting my tongue open the way they usually do. That's the way I like it. Saying rough things is easier than lowering my voice to say things that are barely there. 

_Are you okay?_

I wipe my face with my hands until it's burning. 

_Are you okay!?_

I still don't know where that question came from. And I always know. There's nothing that I do that doesn't have an insightful purpose. What I do is strategic. I _am_ strategic. I do not blurt. I do not crumble.  

I hear his voice in my head, aching in the dark, like that night he collapsed on the terrace, everything coming straight from his chest: _Sometimes I think so._

And then I hear my voice in my head, the voice I would've used if I'd said the words that I'd wanted to say. The words that I'd been so close to letting slip. Because I was standing there, in the dark, in that patch of nothing, and his hair was the only thing that was bright enough to be a patch of something. 

And all I'd been able to think was: _Sometimes I feel the same._

"Simon," I say, and it's barely sharp enough to cut my tongue. I swear the chandelier quakes a little harder. 

It's a boring name. But I don't think he's boring. I think he might be crazy insane, the kind that gets under your skin when you have no more space to give, the kind that rakes right through you, rummaging.

Fiona says I have a questionable taste in men. I think it's rather disastrous - dreadful, awful, bad. 

 

✕

 

I call Phillip. He comes over. I break all of the rules. I touch him too much. I don't want him to leave. And the more I close my eyes, the more his skin darkens into something tawny-warm, and his eyes go from murky to electric blue. 

And his hair shoots from earthbound to Venus, to Mars. 

 

 

**Simon**

He played the violin today. I trampled over Ebb's newly planted butterfly bush just to get closer to the sound. I stood by the lake, my back against the stone wall of the mansion, listening to the bow gliding across the strings one story above. All the windows were wide open. I heard everything. 

I imagined what he'd look like playing. Maybe his eyes were closed. Maybe his knuckles were white, tightening around the bow. Bow like bow and arrow. Or maybe he was staring out of the windows. Maybe he was looking at the sky, at all the invisible stars that were too far for him to reach. 

And my stomach was doing that angry-red, red-angry thing, and the color started to fade, and there was something taking its place, still angry. But not only. I think it's a frustrating shade, something that makes me want to rip my hair out and stuff it into my mouth just by trying to picture it. But I can't. It's like a blind spot. 

Hot and angry and something else. 

 

✕

 

I jump into the shower when I get back home. I try to scrub off all the rage with water so hot my skin turns lobster-red. When I pad to my room, the house is quiet. He's still not home. It's almost eleven PM. It's funny how my father not being home seems to be the only normal thing in my life right now. Everything else is topsy-turvy. 

Being in an empty house and listening to nothing is kind of comforting. It's ordinary, the homey kind. 

I shuffle down into the kitchen and rip open the fridge. I don't even know why I still bother. Sometimes, I think it'll just magically restock itself if I just stare at it hard enough. I lean my head into its cool white belly, the electric buzz making my chest drum slower. I breathe the cold air in and out and slam the fridge closed. 

I think about sneaking out to Penny's - to convince her to finally talk to Micah - when I realize how clean the kitchen is. Not _clean_ clean, but it's cleaner than usual. The stains on the counters have been wiped away, and the pile of dirty dishes has diminished to a spoon and a bowl with The Beatles printed on the side in blocky yellow letters. Even the kitchen table is less crowded. Now, it's just weighed down by a stack of books and yesterday's newspaper. The kitchen looks bigger. There's more room to breathe. 

I wonder why he did it. The reason should be so simple, but I ask myself _why_. It's this glitch ripping through the system, a splatter, a fault. _Why._  

I don't know if I want to let myself think about the answer. It's like knowing you've gotten used to something just for it disappear, like a carpet being pulled away beneath your feet. 

I don't want to know why. 

And isn't that the story of my life…wanting to stay clueless to stay safe. 

I slump over a chair at the table and let my forehead slump against the newspaper. I breathe in the smell of ink and old paper. My head rolls to the side, and I stare the stack of books, their thick spines lined with pretty patterns, vines sprouting buds across a white surface. I don't know why my father would read anything like this. These books look like they're usually only read by pretty girls.  I don't even think my father has enough time to read. Not when he doesn't even have enough time to be at home. 

_And yet, he has time to clean the kitchen_ , I think. 

I shake my head because I'm too scared to think about that ominous _why_. So I peel my cheek from the newspaper and take one of the books, let the weight of it ache in my wrist. 

_Love and Other Lovely Little Violent Things_ is spread across the patterns of vines in spiraled, wound letters. 

"By Lucy Finch," I read. _Lucy Finch._

This whole entire thing sounds sappy as fuck. Maybe someone from work forgot it was his birthday last month. I imagine that Kayla, the bubbly forensic technician, thought this was a good idea. 

(My dad hates acknowledging his birthday. It's better for you to just shut up and ignore it than try to do good by him.) 

Back when I was too young for my dad to leave me alone at home, he brought me to work and let me play with building blocks next to the malfunctioning vending machine in front of his office. Kayla kept bringing me her niece's thrown out Barbies because she thought I should play with prettier things than building blocks. And I did. I liked ripping their tanned arms out and gnawing at their heads.

I bet this was Kayla's idea. I kind of feel sorry for her. She probably meant well. She always does. She just never knows how to do it right. 

I open the first page to the acknowledgments. 

 

_For Davy and the brilliant worlds hiding in his head._

_Thank you for letting me listen._

_Thank you for letting me take a peek._

_Thank you for letting me in._

 

✕

 

I know it's a coincidence. I know. I know it's just some cosmic defect that I happened to have stumbled upon at the wrong time. I know it's unhealthy considering. I know it's unhealthy _hoping_. I know. And I know that this is just going to be another thing that I'll drown in. I'll hold on too tight. I'll lose myself in some messed up cycle. It's always like this. I find a hint or the tiniest thing that could bring me closer to answers, and I'm done for. That's why I stopped doing that to myself. I stopped caring about that part of my life a long time ago. 

But now it's back, this ugly little tug in my rib cage that I only ever get when I think about her. 

_Her_. 

This person who shares my skin. 

To my dad, she's non-existent. Sometimes, I think he convinces himself that he either gave birth to me or some stork dropped me off in a white sheet at his doorstep. I'd bet my money on the latter. It was probably some sort of accident, some sort of mismatch in the stork-baby-pick-up station, and I got dropped off at the wrong doorstep. And my dad had to roll with it because of the 'no return' policy. 

He's never talked about her. I had to spend years squeezing everything I could out of Mitali and Martin. They knew my mother before I happened. 

All I know is that her name is Lucy, that she lives in California and that she used to call my father Davy. 

I guess at the time, that was all I needed for my imagination to run wild. In my tiny toddler head, she was a space-crime-fighting astronaut who was assigned to the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and she had to leave earth to save the universe. Then when I turned thirteen, she was a supermodel with Californian-tanned skin and hair like a beach cove, and she changed her last name to Sinclair. I kept hoping that one day she'd come fetch me, bleach my teeth, drown me in summer gold. And then puberty hit, and she turned from rebellious runaway to mother of another family. After that, I stopped pretending. And all she was was a scared woman who wasn't ready to commit. That's stayed with me for a while now, and I know it's just part of a truth, but for me, that's more than enough. 

I spend the rest of the night with my face latched to the screen of my laptop, fingers typing letter after letter into search boxes, tabs upon tabs popping up. 

Lucy Finch is a British New York bestselling author who lives in Sacramento California. With her husband. And her two children. And her dogs. 

She's beautiful. Strong and gentle, like a new June bud. Long bright hair, the lightest shade of warmth, and her eyes are blue. Just blue. The kind of blue that doesn't need a 'like'. Just blue. Her very own blue. 

I stare at pictures of her for hours, convincing myself that we have the same eyes, that her nose has that little kick at the tip like mine, that her ears stand off of her head just an inch too much. Just like mine. But the longer I look, the less I find. And I wonder if maybe our resemblance isn't in our faces. Maybe it's somewhere else. Beneath everything. Like lungs and heartbeats. 

She's 38, meaning if she is _her_ , she had me when she was 20. 

I wouldn't be able to raise a child in two years. I have no idea where my life is going. How would I take care of some tiny human if I can't even take care of myself? I get drunk straight out of the bottle. I fall in love with strangers about ten times a day. I stalk angry boys around their property because I'm trying to convince myself I hate them. I spend my money on sandwiches and forget to eat them because I'm busy eating the sandwiches I bought an hour before. Sometimes, I go to sleep with the stuff I wore during the day, and then I just brush my teeth in the morning and leave the house without changing. Sometimes, I forget to brush my teeth. I leave the bathroom lights on more than I can count. I slam my body into walls on purpose when I get too angry. 

I don't know how to be a functioning adult, and I don't think I'd know how to be one in two years. 

What if she felt the same way? What if my father felt the same way? (I'm pretty sure he did, but I ask myself that question anyways.)  Why in the world would she have me if she wasn't ready? And even if it was an accident…

She could've just decided not to have me at all. 

That thought feels like a gut punch. Just like every other thought I've had for the past three hours. I'm being beaten to a bloody little pulp. 

She might be real now. My mother might be an actual person and not just an idea. It's like an imaginary friend finally manifesting into something real, something palpable, something with a face and a voice and a heart of its own. Except, she's not my friend. She never was. She's just some stranger who accidentally had a child that she wasn't ready for. 

I slam my laptop closed, and I throw her books from the kitchen table. It feels good, breaking, smashing, hurting. And when I think I might slam myself against the kitchen counters, I run out into the early morning, and I ride my bike until I collapse at the fence of a cattle field. And throw up. 

 

 

**Baz**

He doesn't just work with them. He spends time with them - whilst genuinely enjoying it by the way he's laughing into his pint glass every time the smudgy gardener flings his arms into the air. As if he's reenacting a butchered version of a Shakespeare monologue. 

"I'm gonna ask Minty if she wants to take a ride on the Dev-mobile," Dev slurs after slamming his shot glass onto the bar deck. "Stick shift only." He humps the air from where he's sitting on his bar stool. Niall howls. Because that is all Niall is capable of, besides running away from confrontation and basking in attention. But O'Neil's is too packed for him to attract any attention whatsoever. It's Saturday, and Manchester's playing. Everybody's the loudest version of themselves. Liquor-drenched and smoke-stained. 

"Shagging her would lower your IQ, Dev," Niall says once he's settled himself, taking another swig from his flask. He brings his own stuff to bars. He doesn't trust the hygiene. Sometimes, I think he has to fight the urge to spread a napkin over his bar stool before taking a seat.

"She's got great knockers, though. Bloody fantastic ones." Dev lifts his hands in front of his chest and cups the air. I lean a little more to the left and stare over Niall's shoulder. 

The gardeners have been sitting there since we got here. Simon's been inhaling food like he hasn't eaten in days, and the smudgy guy is smoking like it's his oxygen. The woman - Ebb, I think - is the only one at the table who doesn't seem to be on the verge of extreme. She's staring at the fizzing telly, her arms jiggling into the air every time the soccer ball gets close to any goal. 

"Fuck yeah, she does. I mean, Baz would know," Niall says. 

They all seem to be enjoying whatever they're doing, the gardeners, each and every one of them smiling and bobbing their heads around with laughter.

"Shit! That's right! Baz, didn't you shag her?" Dev asks.

Simon's smiles unfurl his whole entire head. Like ten matches being lit in light speed time-lapse. Like an outburst. Boom. 

"Yeah, how were her bristols, Baz?" 

When he's angry, he's burning. When he's happy, he's burning. 

"Hey, Baz!"

Simon's a bonfire of a human being. 

"Baz!" Niall's hand is so close to my face I can smell the zesty bite of sanitizer. I wrinkle my nose and shift back, the bar stool wobbling beneath me. Niall's still waving his hand. I bat it away. 

"What were you - " Dev turns his head into Simon's direction. "Bloody hell. It's the little wanker."

"What? Who?" Niall looks over his shoulder, dark eyes going feline. "Well, well, well…" he breathes. "You said he ran before you could get your hands on him. How 'bout we fuck him up right now?" 

Dev dribbles his fingers across the bar deck, and there's this ugly smile cracking his big face open. 

Sometimes, I think they stopped growing up after seventh year, the time we got off on making other people's lives miserable. Doing nasty things. Being nasty. It's like they're still stuck in that phase, constantly needing to feel something tremble and squirm in their hands because it makes them feel bigger than they are. 

Sometimes, I feel like I'm still stuck in that phase, too. 

It's hard to get out if you know it's the only thing that can make you feel better. Nothing comes close to it. Nothing can make you feel like you're on top of the world like beating the shit out of something that can't fight back. It's sad. But it's the truth. 

That's why the human race is so messed up. Being good is an option. Being bad is instinct. 

"Screw him," I say, forcing my voice down into my stomach, making the words drone through my throat. "He's not even worth it."

"He was being a little shit, Baz. Since when do we not do something about it?" Niall is staring at Simon, and I want him to fucking stop because I feel like gauging his eyeballs out. 

"He's scum, Niall. Not worth anyone's time," I say. Simon's laughing again. I can't hear it. But I can see it. It's sparking up the room. And it's making my stomach explode.

"Come on…" Niall says, a child picking at a wound with dirty fingers- like he can't help it. "What's the fun in ignoring easy prey." He smiles. Big. Cannibal teeth. 

I lurch forward. I don't know what I'm doing. I've got Niall by the collar of his polo, fisting the rippled material, grasp tightening. I tug him closer. One sharp pull. He pants. My knuckles crack. He's so close I can smell the liquor straight through his pores. 

"I said. Let. It. Go." I slam the words through my clenched teeth. Niall pushes me off, but I keep him close, just a second, just to let him know I'm not fucking around. I let him go. He stumbles back down onto his bar stool, clutching at his collar, flattening it out, eyes strained against my shoes like a scolded dog. 

Dev stares at me until he slides over the bar and orders another shot with his voice on the down-low. 

"I - " I don't know if I want to apologize or not. "I'm going out for a smoke," I say, my feet already making their way towards the door. I look past Niall's shoulder, towards the table at the back. Simon's staring straight at me. 

Blue. And breathing. And stupidly brave. 

 

✕

 

The cool air hits me right in the face. I breathe it in like I'm greedy, like I think I might never get this much ever again. My cheeks feel fuzzy, my thoughts, too. 

I weave myself through the couple of people wallowing outside of the bar, bottles and cigarettes dangling from their fingers. O'Neil's neon sign fizzes above my head, replacing the moon. Today's been the first cloudy day of summer. Which is the only normal thing that's been going on lately. Hampshire doesn't have these kinds of summers. It's mostly just warm and grey. But this July has been one chunk of electric blue skies. It feels odd. The wrong kind of odd. Silence before the storm. 

I kick a lonesome bottle up the sidewalk and head towards the only bus stop shelter in Brockenhurst. A bus drives up here every once in a while. Everybody usually just takes the train. 

It's a tiny metal structure with a U-shaped roof curling over a bench and trashcan (that probably hasn't been emptied in weeks). The thing about Burreys street is that everything that's reachable is covered in graffiti and weathered down billboards. The bus stop shelter looks like a color splatter. 

I slump onto the bench and stick a cigarette into my mouth. I don't light it. I just let it dangle, wait, string out the moment until my feet start to twitch. And only then do I light it, right after that moment where I think I might rip my chest raw and open. I like torturing myself. I like checking how long I can take it. On some days, I can keep it unlit between my lips for minutes. On others, it's barely even a second until it's burnt down to a crisp. 

I let the smoke crawl down my lungs, corrupt the insides, make me dirty. It's wrong…the worst kind of habit. I keep promising myself I'll stop every New Years. I think I just never wanted to stop bad enough. 

There's something bronzy caught in the corner of my eyes. My head goes hot. 

_Venus. Mars._

I keep my eyes strained against the building on the other side of the street, the windows like insect eyes, dark and buzzing. Maybe he'll go away if I ignore him long enough. But the more I stare at the building, the more this feels like that moment I torture my mouth with an unlit cigarette. Letting it dangle. Waiting. Stringing it out. 

My feet twitch. I think I might rip my chest open. 

"Are you just going to stand there staring at me?" I ask. I turn my head. I look at him. There's this crack in my chest, like a twig snapping in a quiet forest.

 

 

**Simon**

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just standing in the dark - staring at him. It's hard to look at anything else when he's sitting right beneath the fluorescent lights of the bus stop. He cocks an eyebrow. I wish I could cock an eyebrow back. But my facial muscles are not capable of doing that without making it look like I'm having a seizure. I swallow. I forgot his question. 

"Are you fucking deaf?" he asks, and it sounds like he's confronting an idiot. My knuckles start to throb, that little kick right before I crunch my fingers into fists. 

It was some sort of stupid impulse to follow him. It's always an impulse. I ran to listen to him play the violin. I rode my bike to his house in the middle of the night. I followed him out of O'Neil's. 

It's like I can't help it. But I keep trying to convince myself that I can.

Impulse. Stupid impulse.

One moment I was laughing about one of Nicky's bar brawl reenactments, when I spotted Baz at the bar - too shiny for O'Neil's - ripping some boy with a buzz cut onto his feet, knuckles coiled like he was going to wreck his face. Blow up. And then he let the boy go, and his face cracked, just for a second, and I don't know if I'm just buzzed on beer or if he actually looked _scared_. He slipped out of the door so fast I didn't have enough time to wonder. And all that was left was that tug in my chest cavity, like a harpoon, sharp and pinching, pulling, tugging, ripping me onto my feet and forcing me to follow. 

Now I'm standing here, plowing through my brain for reasons to hate him, and I can't find anything that's enough. I can't find air, either. 

My stomach's leaking that color. Angry-red and something else. 

"Do you do this often? Follow boys around like you can't help it?" He sticks the cigarette into his mouth, words coming out mumbly. I guess him smoking makes sense. His mouth is used to bad things. "Let me guess," his eyebrow pans back down, and he angles his head low, "daddy issues?"

The words hit me like an electric fizz. My brain reboots.

Reasons you hate Baz: 

_ 1\. He's a self-centered arsewipe.  _

And that's the only reason I need. 

"You know, the world doesn't bloody revolve around you. O'Neil's smells like a shit stall. I need air," I say, flinging my arms around like that will make the words sound angrier. I feel like a child that's trying too hard. 

"Right," he mumbles around his cigarette. He can do that thing where he's rolling his eyes without rolling his eyes. And it just makes me want to dig my thumbs into his eyeballs and squeeze.

He's back to staring into the other direction. I swallow, my fingers twitching at my sides. 

"You know," he flicks the cigarette onto the sidewalk,"it's not like some sort of disease." 

"What?" I snap, trying to make sense of what he's saying. 

"Just sit. It's not like it's going to rub off on you." He gestures towards the space next to him on the bench. With his eyebrows. He can gesture. With his eyebrows. What the hell can't they do? They're diabolical. 

"Rub off - what?" 

"Being queer," he says, cocking his head to the side. His eyes narrow.

I swallow. I stare at his mouth. Slim like a brushstroke - and enough of something to kiss boys like it's the end of the world. I snap my eyes back up. My cheeks feel heavy, flesh leaking, bulky. 

"You a homophobe?" His eyes are still narrowed, but there's something sharp about his stare. As if he'll slice me up like butter if he moves his pupils.

"Am I - No. No…no, I - " My eyes flick around, in hopes I'll find the right words if I just look hard enough. 

I look at him. The tension in his eyes relaxes.

"Straight, then?" he asks. 

There's a zing in my spine like I'm being hit by a sugar rush. 

"Bi?" He cocks an eyebrow. 

I swallow. Again. I can't stop swallowing. He leans forward, and he's looking at me with this nail-gun-sledgehammer-slam-punch stare. 

"Curious?" he breathes.

And then that sugar rush feeling slams through my brain, and I'm a pinball in a pinball-machine, snapping back and forth, hyperactive. 

He laughs - _he fucking laughs_ -face breaking open, teeth showing.

It's the way I imagined it would sound like. Like the beginning of something absolutely horrifying - but it never gets to the climax. It just wavers in that in-between, toes on the edge, ready for a free fall that will never happen. Constant thrill. 

His hand comes up to push loosened strands of hair behind his ear. No hair gel. He looks mellow like this, toned down.

"It's sad how easy it is to mess with you," he says, eyebrow tugged back up, and he leans back. "Just sit down. You're so awkward it hurts." 

And I can feel that pinch in my chest cavity again, tugging me towards that stupid bench. And I don't want to sit. I want to punch him in the face. All I ever want to do is punch him, kick him, touch his hair and his skin and…

And then I don't know. 

I plop down on the far end of the bench, so close to the edge I almost tip over. We both stare at the building on the other side of the road, this tense quiet making the air rumble, electric currents. I don't know if I trust myself with opening my mouth, so I just clamp my bottom lip between my teeth so hard until I draw blood. 

My knuckles give in, and my fingers curl into fists. I press them onto my thighs. 

Baz's feet twitch. 

_Fuck it._

"I won't tell anyone," I say. 

He snaps his head towards me. I'm scared of looking at him. I'm scared my hands might want to come up and hurt him or touch him or - 

"About what?" he asks, and he's using that quiet voice, that thick breath like fog.

"About that boy. You said you'd…end me…if I said anything," I say. I swallow. I can hear the saliva in my throat. "I won't tell anyone about the boy."

He nods and tucks his knees against his chest, and he says,"I won't tell anyone about the crying."

I look at him, his hair messed up, his eyes mid-December days. And I think about how young he looks when he's sitting with his cheek pressed against his knees. Like a kid. 

I wonder what could've forced him to grow up so fast, what could've forced him to be so mean. 

"It's our secret, then," he says. "Gardener." He makes it sound like the most tragic thing. 

_Gardener_. 

"Yeah." I nod. 

There's something warm sparking in the right-hand corner of his mouth. I imagine it's the tiniest tug of a smile. 

I think he's really mean. And I think he's something else, too. And I think _mean_ is the only thing that will hide it enough.

_Like a child_ , I think. _Like a child. Just like me._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexuuuaaaal tenssiiiiioooon between the munchkins. I kind of have this headcanon where Baz is moderately, sort of okayish at flirting, and Simon just - he thinks Baz is the smoothest human being on earth and can't help but swoon into a pretty puddle of mush. The prettiest.  
> It's literally snowing right now and updating has never been so magical :3 Can't wait for Christmas. It's killing me. My room already looks like a gingerbread house!!!!  
> Hope you're all having a spectabulous day! :) 
> 
> (also..BAZ WHY YOU SUCH AN ATTRACTIVE PIECE OF SHIT ILOVEYOU)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this box is always empty and needs to be filled with something sensible. So I shall be using it for vegetable jokes:
> 
> What do you call a conversation between two artichokes?  
> A heart to heart. 
> 
> (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Simon**

The sky is an orange afternoon by the time I skid to a stop at my driveway, hands sticky-sweaty on the handlebars of my bike, chest choking. It's been a gross kind of summer day. My skin's itching to get into the water. I feel like I've taken half of the Grimm's garden with me. The mud caked to my everything is making me ten times heavier. 

I'm about to stow away my bike in the garage when the lights in the kitchen turn on. 

_He's home._

The thought makes me stop in my tracks, hold my breath. It's wrong feeling like this. Like I'm a burglar. Like I'm not supposed to go inside while there's somebody in there. He could see me. He could talk to me. But that's a stupid thought. I know he won't. 

I lean my back against the crumbling fence that cages our house. Even in broad daylight my home is invisible. But it's not the translucent kind. It's the insignificant kind, the irrelevant, just another _something_ hiding in a zip code in the middle of nowhere - not important enough to be on the radar of the world. I think it feels worse when you're inside, feet planted on the other side of the threshold, breathing in that stuffy used-up air. You feel like you're barely there, barely real. 

I don't go in. I wait until the lights in the kitchen turn off and the lights in his office turn on. He always turns on the light, even when he doesn't need it. He sleeps with the lights on, too. There's always this crack of orange cutting through the edges of his bedroom. When I was a kid, I used to think he just never slept, that he just worked and worked and worked, and one day he'd collapse. And then he'd just be gone. I still think that sometimes.

What he's doing is ruining him, and he's in too deep to see it. Because he's busy with seeing things that are worse, things that make him fumble for the light switch. Always. 

  

✕

 

I sneak in through the backdoor. I know I don't have to sneak, but it's become somewhat of a habit - to be quiet, to leave no trace. When he's home, I try to not be there while being there.

I'm almost at the staircase. The mud crumbling from my trousers keeps hitting the floorboards in little _plops_. The sounds are making the house vibrate. 

"Simon?" his voice coming from his office. I don't know how he manages to say my name like he's never said it before. 

I swallow, shuffle up the stairs, try to be as fast as possible. His door creaks, his footsteps heavy. 

"Simon?" He's at the bottom of the staircase, a hand coming up to cradle the handrail. It hurts looking at him. He looks like the bodies splayed out in laboratories of forensic coroners. I stare at his face, hollowed, as if someone scooped the flesh straight out in blocky chunks. His cheekbones jut out of his skin, little bumps of antlers. 

"Yeah?" I try to hold his stare -piercing all the way through to the back of my head.

He breathes in-out, still staring like he's trying to remember the reason for why he came out here in the first place. 

"Sorry," I say. I rip my eyes away from his and let them pan down to my dirty trousers. 

"I'll be quiet next time. Sorry." I feel stupid apologizing. Just like back then, when I was a kid, and he didn't like me playing in the living room because I was too loud for him to hear his own thoughts. _("Quiet! Simon! Quiet! Quiet! QUIET!")_ And I'd always shout back, louder than anything this world had ever heard. _("No! Dad! No! No! NO!")_

I'm turning on my heels, feet already getting ready to catapult me up the stairs, when he says, "No, I didn't mean - I just - " He breathes again, lungs sucking in all the used-up air. He closes his eyes, scrunches them. 

"How are you?" He opens his eyes. They're tougher now, sharper. 

"What?" The words stumble out into the open before I know what's going on. 

"How are you?" he says again. 

I shake my head, just the tiniest bit. 

_How am I? First, you clean the kitchen, and now you're asking me how I'm doing? How am I!? I'm tired! I want to take a shower. I want to eat until I explode. I want to sleep. I really, really want to to sleep. I broke two flowerpots today, and he saw. He. This guy with perfect eyebrows. And it's a really long story. He even brought me sandwiches. He's a dildo, and he brought me sandwiches. And I think he might've scrambled my brain because I couldn't even thank him. I just ate them like some caveman, and I didn't even look at him. And I think he was trying to be nice, and I was being terrible. But he's terrible, too. And Penny might break up with her boyfriend. And I think she doesn't want that. I think she loves him to the moon and back. She's an idiot. And I'm scared for her. I don't like seeing her sad. And I had a dream about Agatha. We were kissing, and then my teeth fell out, and she tried to put them back in, but it didn't work. And then she said she couldn't be with me because I didn't have any teeth, because I wasn't trying to stick them back in hard enough, because I wasn't fighting for anything, because it was never going to be enough. And if that isn't enough of a reason to have trouble sleeping - I keep thinking about Lucy Finch._

_Lucy, Lucy, Lucy._

_Is it her, dad? Is it her? I want to know. I don't want to know. Just tell me. No, don't. I don't know. I never know._

"I'm fine," I say. 

There are a million words blasting through my headspaces, and I can't let them out. I can't tell him. 

My father's eyebrows twitch. 

"I'm fine," I say again, thinking it would feel more real if I just said it twice. 

"You?" I ask, in hopes he'll stop digging through my face trying to find something. That's all he ever does. Dig and search and squeeze the truth out. He can make you feel like you're trapped in an interrogation room just by looking at you. 

"Fine," he says. His eyebrows smooth out, and his face stiffens, blank. All of this feels surreal, like I'm stuck in a bad dream and I'm watching myself from a distance. 

I nod. I don't know why. He nods, too. We both stare at each, nodding, nothing else moving, chins bobbing up and down. 

_Why are you even asking?_ I think.

"I'm taking a shower," I say, still nodding. My eyes pan to the empty walls around the staircase, rectangular stamps of bright white arranged across the grey-stained tapestry. Vacant spots where pictures had once been. The leftovers of the last family that had lived here.

My dad and I have never been the type to put up pictures. Maybe we're scared of making this place feel more personal than it should. 

"Yeah. Okay," he says, nibbling on his lower lip. Everything else on his face is motionless. 

"Okay." He scratches at his beard. The air is so quiet I can hear it. 

New words try to push their way trough my teeth, but I clamp my mouth shut, keep them in there. 

"That's good." He's back to nodding. "It's good that you're fine. Good." 

I know he knows I'm not. He reads people for a living. But I'd rather have him lie than confront me. This is okay. It always is. 

He's still staring at me, and there's this static in the air. Something more. More to come. And we're both waiting. 

"Yeah." I feel my muscles cramping up, shaking off some sort of coma, getting ready to hurl me up to the bathroom. But I can't make myself move. There's this question scratching at the back of my teeth, angry, ready to jump out and burst. My mouth cracks, the tiniest bit, and the words shove themselves through.  

"Where are the books? The ones that were - on the kitchen table." _Before I flung them onto the floor that night. Before they were gone the next morning. Before they just seized to exist from one day to another._

There's something in his face that crumbles, broken off pieces making way for everything underneath. A feeling. Something hollow. Seeing it makes me regret asking that question in the first place. 

"I - " He clears his throat, wets his lips, looks at floor, then back up. He's staring right through me. "I got rid of them."

"Why?"

He doesn't answer, just keeps staring at me until it feels like he's staring past the ends of the earth and further, further, further. He's far away by the time I open my mouth again. 

"Did someone give them to you? Or did you - I mean - did you buy them? Did - " I breathe in. "Did she send them?" I breathe out. The last question hangs in the air like a bad omen: a black cat sneaking past us, a falling star, a mirror cracking untouched. 

The air goes colder, and my father is back to being unreadable, motionless. 

"After you take a shower, can you order some Chinese?" The answer sounds orderly, put together, like rearranged building blocks. 

That's the last thing he says before he turns his back and walks away. The shudder of his office door makes my shoulders jump. 

I stand in the middle of the staircase staring at the empty walls and picturing what it might look like full of pictures, pretty memories. I don't think a camera has ever captured my father and me together on the same frame. 

When I finally manage to get into the shower, I sit on the tiles, knees tucked against my chest. I let the water hit my back until my skin goes numb. 

Maybe I'm relieved he didn't answer that last question. I shouldn't know the answer. It would hurt knowing. 

So this is good. Fine. Good. This is okay. Really, really, super fucking a-okay. 

 

 

**Baz**

_Simon. Simon. Simon._

It's like having the sun in our garden. Even on cloudy days. Lately, I've been catching myself ripping all the curtains open, letting him in, letting him burn his way into the foundation. And then on some days, I'll pull them back closed because he's so warm I can't stop sweating. I don't know what to do with him. I don't even know if I _want_ to let myself do anything with him. It's like I'm a kid again, and I can't stop playing with matches. I can hear my mother's voice in my head: _"Don't, Basilton. You'll burn yourself."_

But I'm stupid and small, and my little kid brain is too stubborn to let myself think about the consequences. 

_You'll burn yourself._

I keep seeing him under the lights of that bus station. They made his eyes look like something more than _just blue._ Because they're always just blue. Nothing special. Everything about him is 'just'. Just this, just that, just blue, just a boy. Except he didn't look like just a boy that night. Maybe the beer had made the world burn brighter. I keep seeing his hair simmering. Venus. Mars. And his eyes, cosmic blue, and his freckles and moles - like space dust. Simon looked like the opposite of earthbound. Like he'd fallen face first into the world. Because if Simon were to fall from the cosmos, he'd slam through the atmosphere, flailing and shouting and passing out, maybe bumping into clouds on his way down. 

I'm sure it was the beer. Alcohol makes everything ten times prettier. 

_Then why does he still look like he blasted into space and rolled around in star dust?_

I watch him from where I'm sitting on the kitchen counter, flicking my eyes to everywhere else when he lifts his head to stare back. He's still working on that stupid flower path at the foot of the terrace. Still. There's this childish hope that maybe he's just taking so long, so he can look through the kitchen window and - 

I suck in a puff of breath and slam my eyes back down, skimming the text boxes of my biology book. I stare at the picture of a neuron until it's branded into the back of my eyelids. I haven't actually gotten anything done for days. I just spread my books across the kitchen island and pretend I'm participating in the makings of my future. My father does the rest, so there's not much I can do other than dig my way through textbooks(something so simple that I hate myself when I'm not even capable of doing exactly that). Sometimes, I feel like a hamster on a hamster wheel, running and running and running, in hopes I'll get somewhere if I just run fast enough. And my father's just staring at me through the bars, sticking his slim fingers between the metal, trimmed nails, red, bulging knuckles, urging me to make my feet twitch faster so he can give me carrot as a reward. 

"For Christ's sake, Baz, the words won't magically brand themselves into your brain if you stare at them hard enough."

Fiona shuffles through the kitchen, still tucked in her lilac night robe. There are zebra-print headphones dangling from her neck, a muffled guitar riff beating through the speakers. I watch her pull the headphones from her neck, and she twirls around me, snapping them onto my head. The music is atrocious, a cacophony of pounds and roars and some frontman belting out butchered love poems. It's loud enough to blast all the thoughts out of my skull. 

Fiona throws her phone onto my pile of opened books, the coiled cord of the headphones attached to it. I wrap it around my fingers and watch her head-bang her way around the kitchen, hands curled around an invisible electric guitar. I smile and let the music blare until my brain feels empty and squeaky clean. 

I rip the headphones off once Fiona is done fixing herself some tea. The world rings.

"Better?" she asks, her usually screechy voice all soft and breezy. Everything sounds better if you compare it to the music Fiona listens to. 

She slips onto the empty seat in front of me and curls around her cup of tea. It smells herb-ish, spicy. The kind my mother used to drink. Daphne only drinks Earl Grey. 

"That was terrible. But - yes," I say. I stare at her mug until she slides it towards me. I take a sip, and the heat scratches my throat. 

"What's up with you, boyo? Lately…you're so - " She takes the mug back and curls her fingers around it. "On edge?"

I look over her shoulder, out the window, try not to let her eyes reel me in. Simon's gone. My skin cools down, as if I'm in the shade after having spent hours under the sun. 

"I'm not," I say, and I clamp my teeth together until my jaw drones. 

Fiona's head goes crooked. She turns around and stares out of the window. 

"He's cute," she whispers. "'S got that boyish charm thing. Just wanna pinch his cheeks."

My face goes numb. Fiona snaps back around. She's biting back a grin. 

"Oh, come on. You don't actually think I haven't noticed you sneaking around the windows?" she says, rolling a messy strand of hair around her knuckles. I stare at the purple nail polish on her fingernails, chipped off, crumbly, pale peeking through. 

"He's _daft_ ," I say, a childish attempt at - _anything_. 

Fiona rolls her eyes, one big vein-straining looping, and she says, "But he's cute."

I flick my eyes to the window. Fiona leans in closer, that held-back grin unfurling. Big white teeth. 

"Gotcha," she says, and I half-expect her to nudge my nose with her index finger. She doesn't. She just pulls a knee up, presses it against the side of the counter and chews on a fingernail. 

"'S that why your eyebrows are doing that thing?"

"What thing?" I snap. I can feel my forehead tensing. 

"The sexually-frustrated thing." She cocks an eyebrow. I try really, really hard not to. I also try really, really hard not to look out of the window again. Not while she's watching. 

"It's not like that." Because it's not. At least, I don't think it is. I don't know. And what does she know?

"Mhm," she hums and takes another sip of tea. Still smiling. "Just talk to him, for Christ's sake! You know, just - _do_ something to get him out of your system. And then you'll be fine. But don't do whatever you're doing." Her smile's gone, and her eyebrows take over face, cocking back and forth like she can't decide which one will make her look more intimidating.

"And what's that?" I slam my biology book closed, squash that stupid picture of that stupid neuron on that stupid page number 325.

She narrows her eyes, tries to get me to look at her so hard I'm afraid to blink. 

"Torturing yourself," she breathes - before reaching over the counter and snapping the headphones back over my ears. The music's blasting my brain out of my frontal bone. Fiona's gone before I've gathered myself enough to rip the headphones back down. I stare at the mug of tea on the counter, still steaming. I chug it down. I burn my throat. 

Her words are stuck in the air, replaying, a broken record. 

_Do something to get him out of your system._

Like what? Talk to him? 

I've already tried that. Sort of. It turned into feeding him rather than trying to communicate with him. I brought out sandwiches last week. Like some idiot. And I stood there on the terrace while Simon chomped down like a neanderthal. I even endured small talk with Ebb about various types of gardening tools, in hopes Simon would chime in or look at me or listen or even call me an anus. _Anything_. But he just sat on the floor staring at his feet, eating and breathing too loud. Because that might be the only thing he is capable of doing. And I felt ridiculous for having thought we would do more than just look at each other through kitchen windows just because we had a conversation made up of a handful of sentences and a lakeful of awkward silence. But there was something there. _Something_ , as in maybe he likes boys. 

But it's just a _maybe_ because he looked like he wanted to punch me stupid half of the time. The other half was filled with him looking like he'd implode, like maybe he'd set me on fire, too, make me burn, make me evaporate. 

Maybe he likes boys. 

Maybe. And maybe I'll let myself do something to get him out of my system. Like barely touch him. Or _really, really_ touch him. With all of my skin. With all of his skin. With all of our - 

Or maybe he doesn't like boys. 

Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he does. 

I come to the conclusion that _maybe_ is the most horrendous word in the English language. _Maybe_ wavers on the edge, keeps your heartbeat drilling, lets you dangle at the cruelest angle. 

It's torture.  

_Don't torture yourself. But also, don't burn yourself._

I don't know what's worse. All I know is that he's turning my headspace into an anarchy. And anarchy is the last thing I need in my perfectly structured monarchy of a life.

 

 

**Simon**

I text Penny to come meet me at the treehouse. We haven't been there for the longest time. Maybe we were just too busy doing everything else, getting older and doing stupid stuff on a whole different level. Back then, we used to spend every single day beyond the fence of my backyard. Out in the forest. Out in the wild. Out in our never-ending kingdom of trees. 

I climb over the fence of my backyard, bordering the forest, my chest getting warm just by thinking about everything on the other side. The Great Beyond. That's what I liked to call. Like it was so far away from everything else. 

I make my way through the foliage, my hands slipping through patches of sun peeking through the heavy canopies above. It's a cool kind of quiet, the kind that I imagine sleeps in a cave, somewhere safe and tucked away from the rest of the world. All I can hear is my breath and the crunch of my shoes below. I hit the hiking trail and follow the sliver of flattened wood chips down to the creek, still as alive as ever, and I jump across it, making my way towards the clearing. It's shaped like an ice cream swirl, and during summer it sprouts daisies and queen anne's lace, and it turns into this giant dab of vanilla. I stumble through the clearing and make my way towards the tip of the swirl. The oak tree is still there, tall and mighty, its arms still trying to cradle the whole entire sky at once, heavy with green, alive, alive, alive. I grin. I feel like charging towards it the way I used to, little mouth ripped open with a battle cry, little feet running towards my ship or my castle or my starship USS voyager. Little heart roaring louder than anything in existence. 

"About time!" I hear Penny's voice ringing through the buzzing summer air. "I was about to call you." 

I can see her hair blazing through the branches of the oak tree. And for a second, I pretend that it's not big Penny. It's Penny from way back then. Small Penny. With her wild hair (which is always red in my imagination because I can't picture her with anything else). And those insect-eyes glasses that are too big for her face. And her hand-me-down Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt. And her kneecaps covered by rainbow colored bandages. Big-mouthed and brave and bright. Little Penelope Bunce. 

"Are you coming or not?" she shouts. 

I smile and climb up the oak tree as fast as I can. It's funny how I still remember where to step, which branches are sturdy enough for me to grab a hold of, which ones are flattened down enough for my feet to stand on. I look up, and Penny's looking down, the sun behind her head making her hair blast. Dynamite. She reaches down and pulls me up by my arms. I fall onto my back, my shoulder blades hitting the wood and the bulging nailheads. The treehouse is nothing but a platform made up of a slab of boards Betsy's Antiques had thrown out in the alleyway next to Mrs. Appelwhite's bookstore. We drove back and forth for a whole entire day, hauling the chunks of wood to the oak tree. I broke my thumb while trying to nail the first plank into place. 

I reach out, and my hand hits the edge of the platform and that tiny round indent from where I'd hammered my thumb into the wood. 

"Hi," Penny says, and she lies down next to me, the backs of our knees curling over the edge, legs dangling. There used to be a time where we were small enough to lie on the platform without peeking out at the edges. That feels like a lifetime ago. 

"Hi," I say. 

"You know, at first I wondered why you wanted to meet here, but," she stretches her hands towards the canopies, as if she's trying to rake her fingers through the leaves and the sun, "I'm not wondering anymore." She giggles. Penny's giggles sound like wind chimes in motion. 

"Can't believe this is all still here. And the wood's fine. Didn't think it would last that long."

"Of course it has to last this long. Think of all the countless hours of sweat and tears we put into this damned thing," I say, and I reach out, too, my fingers poking into the air, trying to touch the sky. 

"And blood. And fights. And a broken thumb!" she says. I nod. I let my arm fall to my side. I watch Penny's fingers still flexing. 

"No, but honestly…I just thought we needed to talk somewhere where the world wouldn't find us," I say. 

A hiccup of a laugh tumbles out of Penny's mouth. It sounds honest. I haven't heard that kind of laugh in a long time. It's usually something subdued, forced down, like she's afraid someone might take it away. 

"I like that," she says. "Where the world wouldn't find us. I like that. I do."

Maybe I was hoping she'd be more honest up here. Maybe she'd trust me with more. With everything, maybe. The way she used to when we were so small, a time where neither of us would have just run away without telling the other. A time where there were no secrets, no keeping-in-the-darks, no silence. 

I can still hear Premal's voice rumbling through my ear. ( _"Penny's missing. She's missing. Simon, she's not home. She's gone.")_

When we were small, the world was so easy, and everything we did was right. Because we wouldn't listen to people who told us that what were doing was wrong. When we were small, we were sure nothing would change ever. We were going to be superheroes, and pirates, and knights, and wizards - until the end of time. And best friends. We were going to be best friends forever, too.  

_'Penny's missing'_ was a wake-up call. 

I turn my head, and my eyes trace the scooped slope of her nose, back and forth, back and forth. 

"Did you talk to Micah?" I ask. 

Penny closes her eyes. Her arms fall to her stomach. 

"No," she breathes. 

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

" _Because_ , Simon." She says it like that's a satisfying answer. But it just makes everything worse. 

"You can't keep avoiding it. You can't keep avoiding him."

"And you can't keep avoiding Agatha," she says, and she snaps her eyes open. Before I know it, my tongue trails along my teeth, checking if they're all there. 

"This is not about Agatha," I huff. "Besides…that's not the same."

"Oh, is it not?"

"Penny."

" _Simon_."

"Why haven't you talked to him?"

She groans. 

"Is that why we're here? So you can talk me into making up with - " Her chest puffs up, but I can't hear her sucking in any air. Maybe the wind is too loud. "With him?"

"No, look, Penny, I just think we haven't, you know, talked?"

Penny closes her eyes again, and says, "We talk every day, Simon." It's timid, tiny, something she can easily dismiss. But I won't let her. 

"No," I shake my head, "I mean we haven't really, _really_ talked. You know? The way we used to. About everything. _Anything_. It's always about something else, about stuff that isn't close to being important."

"Important?" Penny turns her head. Her eyes snap open. Penny's eyes are a warm kind of dark, like burrows, deep in the ground. The safest of places. And when she gets angry, she sets fire to those dens, and you're trapped inside, and there's no way out. 

"Important like what?" she asks, pushing her glasses into place even though they weren't out of place to begin with. I swallow. 

"Important like Micah. Important like your parents wanting you to go to, you know, _Cambridge_. important like everything that's going to happen after school. Important like we don't have much time left until everything changes." I watch Penny's face melt into something small, defenseless, looking for some place to hide. She nudges her cheek into her hair. Her curls fall down to cover up half of her face. All I can see is her left eye. One warm burrow. One safe place. 

"Important like what's going to happen to Penny and Simon."

"Simon and Penny," she whispers. 

"Penny and Simon," I whisper back.  

"Simonpenny and Pennysimon."

"Yeah," I whisper. It's like we're trading secrets. "What's going to happen to them?" 

I twirl a curl of Penny's hair around my finger. 

"Nothing," Penny says. 

"You know that's not true."

"So…what? You want to make up a plan? You want to organize something that can't be organized?"

I can't help but laugh. It makes the air between us gooey-warm. 

"You make me sound like you," I say. 

"And I just sounded exactly like _you_ , didn't I?" Penny laughs, too. It's nice letting our laughter clash in the middle to chunk up the air. The wind blows my hair over my eyes. Penny reaches out to wipe the strands away, but she keeps her hand on the top of my head, holding on. 

"I don't want to make a plan…I just want to talk about it. No judgment. Just talk. Just here," I say, back to whispering, the words small enough for a breeze to pluck them out of my mouth and carry them away. 

"Just here?" she says, letting my head go. 

"Just here," I say. 

Penny turns to her side to face me, and she swipes her curls behind her ear. 

"Whatever happens…I'm not going to Cambridge, Simon," she says with a solid voice. There's this heat in her eyes - dead-on determination - and I know it might be too late for anyone to change her mind. 

"I promise you. We're going to America. Okay? You and me. Simonpenny and Pennysimon," she says, and it sounds so sure I'm afraid of telling her anything that could jeopardize her plans. Because it sounds so good. This is what eight-year-old me wanted for eighteen-year-old me. For me to be with Penny. For me to see the world. For me to leave this town because it would never be enough. 

Because I thought it would never be enough. But maybe it's not about anything being enough. 

Maybe it's about leaving something behind, letting something go, forgetting in order to make space for everything that's new. I'm just not sure what I'd be leaving behind yet. All I know is that I can feel it, this tug, big and sharp at the bottom of my rib cage. 

"What if you went to Cambridge?" I hate myself for asking. 

Penny's eyebrows scrunch, her eyes darting back and forth, as if she's trying to grasp every detail in my face at once. 

"What?" It's not even a sound. It's just her mouth moving. She shakes her head, and she pushes away from me, not much, but enough for me to notice the cold seeping in. 

"You too?" She makes it sound like I stabbed her in the back - like I'm still stabbing her. 

"Penny, look - "

"No. No, you don't get to - I mean, you - " She sits up. She pulls the glasses from her face and stares at me. It feels like a gut-punch. Penny's stares make your lungs clutch for air when there's no buffer in between. 

"I can't stay here. I can't. I can't breathe here, Simon. Never. And you know that. It's like I'm constantly - like there's something sitting on my chest, like, tons and tons, and I can't - I can't breathe." Her chest is heaving. I push myself up, and my hands are hovering in the air, like pets waiting for me to shout out commands. But I can't think of a single thing. They just waver.

"I'm sorry," Penny says. It sounds like a gasp. "I'm sorry…God, I'm sorry. Sorry, Simon. Sorry."

She takes my hands, and I think, _yes, that's what they were supposed to do._

I've never seen it as a bad thing. (I still don't because it's just something that's always _been_ without question.) Penny's always the one who knows what's right. I'm the one who listens. Maybe that's why it's so hard for me to realize that I might also know what's right. And maybe my right might not be like Penny's right. And maybe that scares me. 

I don't say anything anymore. I don't even dare to say Cambridge - or think about it. I just hold Penny's hands until her breathing tones down. 

"I'm sorry," she says again. I don't know what for. "It's just been - _crazy_ at home. Pip's starting school after summer, and Premal's transferring to Oxford, and my parents are all over the place. And it's Cambridge this and Cambridge that. And 'You need to!'. And 'You have to!'. And what about me? You know? Don't I get a say?"

I nod, and I say, "I know." Because I do. I understand. Completely. I've never dared to ask myself that question much. But sometimes, I feel selfish. I think it's selfish. It's a selfish question. But not when it comes from Penny or from anybody else. When it comes from me, it's selfish.

_What about me?_

"I love my family. I love my home. I love all of it. So, so much. But it's time for me to leave and see the rest of it. To figure things out on my own," Penny says, and she sounds so strong, so ready. It just makes me feel smaller. 

"I need to go. We need to. I mean, Simon, what's keeping us here?" Penny presses both of our hands against my chest. I'm scared she might feel my heart drilling. 

"I don't know," I say. 

_Something_ , I think. _Something I haven't figured out yet. And I don't know how to. I wouldn't know where to start. Or with what._

" _Exactly_ ," she says, smiling. Polychromatic. When Penny really means it, her smiles burn brighter than her hair.

I want to smile back. I really, really do. But I just let her mouth burn away all the bad things and clutch her hands tighter against my chest, and I let myself be okay with her not asking me about what I think. I don't like not being okay with it. Mostly, because I'm never the one to tell her first. 

And it feels like a punch realizing I was so afraid of her not being honest anymore - when it was actually me who was slipping away. I can't let that happen. That would go against everything we promised each other. 

I imagine that the wind whips harder and the sun burns brighter and everything goes wild. I imagine Penny's hands shrink and mine do, too. Little fingers. Little heart lines. 

I imagine we're small Penny and eight-year-old me. 

_"Nothing's going to rip us apart," she says, and her mouth goes big with a gap-toothed grin."It's us against the world forever and ever and ever and ever and EVER!" She shouts the last ever into the sky. It's louder than my lion-roar heartbeat. Thump-thump._

_"Never ever," I whisper. And I'm not sure if she heard me._

 

 

**Baz**

"This is my favorite part!" Fiona shrieks from where she's sprawled across her bed, lying in a pile of chocolate wrappers, eyes strained against the old TV. It's perched on a mountain of books, The Breakfast Club playing out on the bulging screen between cracks and fizzes. I told her we could watch anything she wanted on my laptop, but she dismissed it with a wave of her hand a _"Sweetheart, you've gotta watch the oldies on an oldie!"_

Meaning: a tape and a telly from the stone age. I'm surprised everything still works. 

Fiona throws a pillow at me and gestures for me to look back at the screen - just in time for me to catch Allison shake her dandruff onto her drawing because she wants it to snow. Fiona cackles. It's like listening to a hyperactive piglet. I laugh. Her laugh makes everybody laugh. It's a chain reaction that never stops, especially when you're stuck with her in a crowded room, and she's cackling so hard her hands are on her knees. I visited her in London a few years ago, and she made a whole entire tube burst out laughing after I pointed out she was wearing her shirt the wrong way round. It's my favorite part about my aunt. She never cares about what other people think of her. It makes her weightless and wonderful like a never-ending fireworks display. You can't help but lift your head up to her and watch and laugh right back.

She throws me a handful of last year's Christmas chocolates. She said she found them stashed away in the wine cellar. And I'm a hundred percent sure we're currently eating Mordelia's inventory. Fiona wants to go down there later to find more. She thinks maybe Mordelia hid dead animals between the shelves. Or voodoo dolls. 

I bite the head off of a faceless Santa Claus and stretch out on the couch. I used to fit on it without my feet dangling over the armrest. 

"It was her favorite part, too," Fiona says, and she rolls onto her back and stares at the telly with her head upside-down. There's chocolate stuck in the corner of her mouth. 

"What?"

"Your mum's. That part with Allison was her favorite part, too. Which is bollocks, because there are so many other parts that are so much more worthy of a 'favorite part' title. But it just made us laugh the hardest. Even when we got so old we weren't supposed to laugh at something so…" She flails her hands into the air. She laughs. 

"She liked _The Breakfast Club_?"

"Loved it."

"But it's - so _American_."

"What. You thought she'd be a _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ type of totty?" Fiona rolls onto her stomach, white-red-green-colored foil crunching under her weight. 

"I thought she was more of a _A Room With a View_ type of person," I mumble and nibble on the rest of the chocolate Santa. 

Fiona lets out an exasperated gasp. Theatrical. Fiona-like. 

"Well, boyo, there's a lot you don't know about her," she says. "A lot."

I turn away from the telly and lean against the backrest, facing my aunt. She's perched up on her elbows, and she presses her jaw into her palms. 

Her face falls like she just said something forbidden, like she just broke a promise, blurted a secret. 

"Tell me," I say, quietly, as if I'm afraid I'll scare her off. "About her. Tell me about her."

Fiona clamps her lips between her teeth. Her hair - knotted up into a tower - slumps to the left, the white streak falling along her cheek like a feather. She rubs at her nose and digs her face into the mattress before coming back up for air, face scrunched. 

"I don't know if I should," she says. And it's quiet, too. As if she's afraid of scaring _me_ off. 

I lift myself up and clutch the backrest until my arms quake. 

"What do you mean you don't know if you should?" I cock an eyebrow. Maybe if I stare at her hard enough she'll crack. "I just want to know more, Fiona. I just - _Everything_. You know? Everything about her that I might've been too young to have understood."

"That's exactly the point, Basilton." Fiona never calls me that. It's only Baz and boyo. She can't say Basilton with a straight face. But her mouth is clamped into a thin line, and her eyes are strained against mine like it's causing her pain. She rolls off of the bed and pads towards the telly. She turns it off. The image on the screen sucks itself into the middle, thinning out, a white line against black. An electric slurp. 

Fiona turns towards me, and she crosses her arms around her robe. I haven't seen her wear anything else for days. She bobs up and down, her mouth still sucked between her teeth. My aunt looks like a child that's afraid of being left in the dark, anxious, twitchy. Whatever it is - I feel like holding her hand and telling her that I'll be there.

"Look," she shakes her head, swallows, "What you know about her is all you need to know."

I sit up, feet on the black carpet, ready to stand up. Fiona looks up at the ceiling. I look up, too. But there's nothing there but a broken chandelier. I stare at the cobwebs between the glass. 

"What is that suppose to mean?" It comes out sharper than I want it to. I look at her. I wish I could reach out and tug her mouth into a smile, make her laugh.

I dig my hands into the pockets of my jeans. 

"It means - Look, it means that it's best that she stays the way she does." She licks her lips. Chapped. "For you."

"For me?" I'm on my feet before I know it. "Fiona, it was just a simple question. I'm talking about, about…What was her favorite food for example? Or did she have - I don't know - a secret hideaway? Something mundane, something silly. I just want to know who she was and not have to - 

"It's been eight years!" she shouts. _Shouts._ Loud. And angry. And I don't know why.  "You don't need more reasons to miss her…or to let her hurt you some more." She tightens her robe around her waist.

I step towards her, the plush of carpet soft beneath my bare feet. Fiona shies away. 

"What are you talking about? That's not even what this is about. That's not - That wasn't - I mean, I didn't mean to -"

"She is who she is…to you. And she's stayed that way for a very long time. We've gone through this. You know her. And what you know is enough."

"That doesn't even make any sense! What are you even - "

" _Enough_!" She cuts me off one last time. I breathe. She breathes. Everything she's been saying has zoomed past me. I'm too stubborn to let them dwell.

Fiona looks at the floor and wipes invisible dirt from her robe. And when she looks back up at me, her nose is dabbed red, cheeks flushed, eyes glazed over. 

I want to hold her. But we don't do that in this family. 

"Enough, Baz," she breathes. She swallows. She stares at the floor again. "I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap. Can you tell Vera to bring up dinner by nine? That'd be sweet. Real sweet." 

I wait for her to look at me again. She doesn't. 

I didn't mean to mess this up. It was nice, and it was supposed to stay nice. We were going to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Back to the Future. 

She shuffles towards her bed. 

"I'm sorry," I say. I pick up the leftover wrapper from the couch, and I leave her room. I stare down at the shred of foil once I'm in the hallway. Half of Santa Claus' face, crumpled and torn, the saddest thing. 

"It's okay, Baz," I hear her say through the door. "It's okay."

_What are you not telling me, Fiona?_

 

✕ **  
**

 

Dev is the type of guy that will throw a house party just to get a girl to sleep with him. 

This house party is for Minty. It's all hers. He thinks it's romantic. I think it's repugnant. And yet, I'm sitting in the dining room with people I don't know, listening to music I don't listen to, staring at a portrait of Dev's grandmother, Mathilda, perched in the middle of the wall opposite from me. She's lit up from above, an extra strip of spotlights just for her. The dim lighting of the rest of the room is turning her into something phosphorescent. Wrinkled and wicked. She looks like the type of person that would slap you just for perching your elbows onto the table while eating, the exact type of person that would smack the sense straight out of Dev's brain. He used to come to school with bruises on his temples and scratch marks on his neck. He played it off as the leftovers of regularly having wild animal sex with Phillippa Abbott, some totty that got expelled from school last year for selling flash in the girl's bathrooms. Nobody knew the truth until Dev's grandmother passed away. Heart attack. In the dining room. Apparently, here face flopped into her pea soup mid-conversation, the liquid hot, still simmering. Niall squeezed all the gory details out of Dev once he got back from a month's worth of family therapy. Niall's like a hyena. He sniffs out the bad leftovers. He even told me the soup melted away her cheek implants. 

I don't make fun of the dead. But I think people like that deserve to die in a puddle of pea soup. 

I stare at Mathilda until the eye contact makes my face scrunch up. I keep wanting to punch a hole into the portrait every time I'm here. Niall says we should just steal it and burn it in CJ's pizza oven, watch her face melt for real. But Dev's mother would probably opt to kill us. Last year, Niall flung a rubber band against Mathilda's brushstroke-dabbed forehead, and Dev's mother threatened to call the police. Dev's family is psychotic. But so is mine. So is everybody's in one way or another. This town is a pit full of bad, a chunk of messed up. A British Bermuda Triangle. 

The Brockenhurst motto is: _If you're a blind spot on the map, you might as well abuse it!_

You can get away with a lot of things when the rest of the world isn't watching. Or rather, when the rest of the world doesn't know you exist. 

I lean back against my chair and tap my fingers across the glass surface of the dining table. It's already sticky with liquor rings and ashtray-innards. The kids across from me are arranging coke lines with credit cards and Brockenhurst Manor Riding Club memberships. One of them gestures for me to take a hit. I almost say yes. And it scares me. 

I leave the room before I change my mind and pretend to be looking for Niall - or Dev. But Dev's probably off wooing his potential love affair. And I'm pretty sure Niall's already passed out somewhere blatantly public. He lives for the spotlight. Even when he's unconscious. 

I walk circles around the ground floor, passing groups of kids spasming away to the music blasting through the surround sound system, high trebles coming from everywhere at once. There's something rotten about it all, this awfulness lurking beneath a layer of perfect. Like a flesh wound under a bandage. Alcohol makes your blood run thinner.

I breathe in the smoke wafting out of everybody's mouths in hopes that'll keep me from reaching into the back pocket of my jeans. I can feel the cigarette packet burning against my skin, leaving an indent. I ignore the twitch of my left foot. 

I pass through the kitchen the fifth time and end up rummaging through the fridge. The only remotely acceptable thing about Dev's mother is that she always makes sure there are at least two meals in the fridge at all times. I opt for the Tupperware labeled with carbonara and watch it twirl in the microwave. There's a girl sitting on the counter next to it, refined and glossy in a way only girls from St. Arlingtons can be. The result of constant upkeep. Her dark head is stuck in a fishbowl of smoke. She offers me the stub of her cigarette. I take it when the timer hits zero, sucking it dry, promising myself I won't take any more after this. I end up sitting on the counter top next to her, sharing my carbonara. She uses her hands. I don't know why I don't care. We watch a group of girls climb onto the kitchen island, skimpy, loud, trying to dance to music that can't be danced to.

Today has been nothing but a mess. It was horrible to think being here would make the 'ignoring the rest of my life' part easier.

I can't stop thinking about my aunt and the pain in her face.

_"You know her. And what you know is enough."_

It's not. Because I don't know her. My mother is just this patched up picture made from a little boy's memory. When I was a kid, she was above the world, the ruler of the universe. She made planets orbit, stars cluster. She was the Big Bang. She was strong and fearless and good. In my head, my mother is the distorted version of a superhero, someone who could do no wrong ever. But nobody like that could possibly exist.

This is earth. And everybody on it is human. And everything human is tragically flawed. That's just a fact. 

My father is trying to turn me into this person who was too perfect to have been real. I can't be above the world. I can't be the ruler of the universe or the Big Bang. I'm not strong or fearless or good. I can't be the flesh and bone projection of something I don't know how to be. 

Or maybe I'm just looking for some stupid excuse to make my lack of greatness admissible. I'm a bastard like that. 

My thoughts make my stomach twist. When I think I might throw up, I hand the rest of the carbonara to the girl. 

"Please, use the fork," I say and hand it to her. 

I'm back to pacing circles around the house, each room having turned into a mosh pit in no less than an hour. There's dirt caked to the rugs and the marble floor, cigarette stubs stuck to gold-dusted decor, red plastic cups hooked to the antlers of the deer head mounted above the fireplace. Dev's mother might rip his head off if this place isn't spotless by the end of the weekend. That is, if she doesn't come home earlier from that seaside retreat. You never know with Dev's mother. She once flew back from a business trip to Dublin because she thought she left the tap water running. And she didn't trust Dev when he told her she hadn't. Dev was at home. 

I'm back in the kitchen after another two rounds of walking towards nowhere in particular. I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that I don't want to be at home.  

I should be slumped in a corner with anybody willing to get stupidly pissed and forget the world, but instead, I'm standing in the kitchen watching the girl from before eating the carbonara with her hands. The fork is placed neatly beside her, balanced at the edge of a crystal ashtray. 

I leave the kitchen and walk another circle around the house. And then another. And another. Until I end up in the office of Dev's father, accidentally interrupting two girls snogging in the armchair by the fireplace. They ignore me and keep going. 

I grab a book at random from the big oak desk. I sit on the floor and read my brain to a coma with _Encyclopedia of Filled-in Tax Forms from 1972._

 

 

**Simon**

It's in the middle of the night, and I'm standing in front of Agatha's house. White and polished like a pearl in the dark. I don't know what to do next. The only reason I came all the way here by foot was to give myself time to think of what to do next. I had 45 minutes to think of something, and I'm still as clueless as ever. Maybe even more than just clueless. I think my head might've mutated into a black hole. 

All I can think about is yesterday afternoon, about Penny and the treehouse. And I keep thinking about that tug at the bottom of my ribcage and the thoughts in my head: _Maybe it's about leaving something behind, letting something go, forgetting in order to make space for everything that's new. I'm just not sure what I'd be leaving behind yet._

What if it's Agatha? What if I'm scared of leaving things the way they are, broken off but not mended? Just one big last fight with no consolation? 

I've only stopped by the clinic a couple of times, just to say hello to Dr. Wellbelove. Agatha's never there when I'm there. I know she's been avoiding me. I know I've been avoiding _her_. And I'm not sure if I'm really ready for that to change. It just feels like this could go on forever without any consequences, like it'll just stay like this, paused, until I'm ready to press play and fix it. But earth doesn't just stop turning. It's not like something seizes to exist just because you're not there and you can't see it. Nothing stops changing. And that's exactly it. _Change_. I'm scared of how much might've changed since the last time we talked. It's stupid because I keep telling myself I could shove this down the line, just keep avoiding and pretending. But the longer I wait - the worse it will get. 

That's how it always is. I can feel the pressure on my gut, on my chest, on my forehead. Forced down. 

I suck in the night air, a cool kind of blue, and I hope the oxygen will cleanse my headspace. It just makes it worse. I feel like my heart might drop or my ears might pop the way they do in elevators shooting towards the sky. I hate it when my ears pop. I think it's worse than someone scratching their fingernails down a blackboard.  

I'm standing behind the metal fence, my fingers hovering over the number pad in the stone pillar at the edge of the gate. I stare at the round bulge of glass above the electric blue digits, a tiny red dot flickering on and off in the middle like some cyborg eye. I imagine someone's watching me through the camera. Helen, maybe. Or Agatha. What if we're indirectly staring at each other?

I used to make fun of their over-the-top security system. They have cameras hidden all around their property. I used to inspect the garden gnomes - bizarre family heirlooms - thinking their eyes might've been replaced with mics or cameras. Like in B-rated spy movies. 

I keep staring at the number pad until I clamp my teeth together and turn away. 

" _Bollocks_ ," I hiss. "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks."

What am I going to say?

_Hello, Agatha! I'm sorry that I wasn't enough. I'm sorry you weren't enough. I'm sorry we weren't enough for each other. I'm sorry that us being together felt like an obligation. I'm sorry that it didn't feel like a 'now and forever' kind of thing but more like an 'it's expected to last, so we'll need to make this work' kind of thing. I'm sorry you felt like a trophy. I'm sorry I felt like a job. I'm sorry._

I don't know if I could say it all without it coming out the wrong way. My mouth is jinxed. It can make anything good sound like a trainwreck. I don't want to hurt her feelings. I don't want to hurt her ever. But I did.

I slump my head against the metal of the gate, the cool branding into my skin. 

The stupidest time to have an earth-shattering fight has got to be Christmas. Nobody fights during Christmas. It's that time of the year where nothing bad is supposed to happen because that would go against the system of the cosmos. Who fights during Christmas while watching Doctor Who? 

I shouted at her. And she shouted at me. And she kept saying that she didn't feel wanted. And I kept saying that she was breaking everything we built - like I was some kid staring at the rubbles of a Lego house. And we were just shouting past each other, nothing sticking, nothing reaching. I don't know if her parents heard. I'm sure Helen did. She's some sort of maid-type person who's worked for the Wellbeloves since Agatha was a little girl. She drives her around, cooks her meals. Like a super-nanny-bodyguard. I like her. She's cool. She used to watch Doctor Who with us. She even sent me a carton of cookies after the breakup. _A carton._ And I finished all of them in under an hour, thinking about Agatha until I felt like regurgitating the cookies back into the carton.  

I press myself away from the bars of the gate and stumble back onto the path leading to the main road - until I stumble right back and jab my thumb onto the buzzer. Again and again. 

_"Hello?"_ Helen's voice fizzes through the speaker. I shove my face up into the camera, knowing that all she can probably see are my nostrils, but I don't give a crap because I need to talk to Agatha. I need closure. I need something. Anything. I need this tug in my rib cage to fucking stop. 

"Helen, it's me, and I need to talk to Agatha." I press into the mic. "Uh - _Please_ ," I add. Because I always forget that. It took Mrs. Wellbelove two years to drill proper etiquette into my brain. But I'm getting sloppy fast. _Please_ and _thank you_ can go sod off. 

" _Simon_?" Helen asks in that twitter of a voice of hers. 

"Yeah."

" _What are you - "_

"I need to talk to her. It's really important! Please! I need to -"

" _All right. All right. Wait! And don't you dare climb over the gate. I don't want you setting off that alarm again. Wait! Okay? Wait, Simon!_ "

I do. And it's killing me. I stare at the glowing windows of the house, keeping my eyes stapled to the one on the second floor to the far left - _her room_ \- the lights pouring out of pink-patterned curtains. 

The speaker cracks. I slam my eyes back against the camera. 

" _Simon?_ " It's still Helen. 

"Yeah? Is she -"

" _She's not home_."

Bullshit. 

"The lights in her room are on, Helen. Please."

" _She's not home, Simon._ "

"Come on! Look, I just, I need to talk to her."

" _I'm sorry._ " She sounds sincere even through the rush of the speakers. I stumble away from the camera, jab my fist against the stone pillar. My knuckles crack. 

"She doesn't want to talk to me."

" _Just go home, Simon. I'm sorry."_ I don't know why she'd apologize. But Helen's the type of person who feels like everything is her fault, like she's got to carry the weight of the world on her tiny bird-boned shoulders. She even said sorry when I broke the Wellbelove's TV remote two years ago. It's always _sorry_ with Helen. Sometimes, I wonder if she thinks she needs to apologize for her existence. 

"Could you - _Please_ , Helen."

_"I'm sorry."_ I think she might've run out of things to say. 

_Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._

"Please?"

" _Please, go home_." 

"Helen."

" _Simon, please._ "

"Could you…tell her to call me, yeah?"

" _I'll try. All right? I promise I'll try. Stay safe, Simon._ "

The speaker cracks. 

"Wait, Helen!" Nothing. I press my thumb against the buzzer again. Nothing. "Tell her I'm sorry."

I wait. But I'm sure she didn't hear it. I look back up at Agatha's room. The lights are off. 

"Bollocks," I breathe. 

I think about climbing over the gate and throwing a garden gnome against Agatha's window. But it's not worth waking up the whole entire town with the triggered sirens. Actual sirens. Last time was bad enough. 

I dig my hands into the pockets of my jeans and shuffle down to the road. I hate that about this part of Brockenhurst. All the houses around Rhinefield lane are cut off from each other, completely cradled by the forest, hidden from plain sight. You have to pass two gates to get to the actual houses. The properties here are so large it's ridiculous. 

A million acres and ten story mansions caged by military approved security systems. For four people. _Why?_

I kick my feet into the ground once I'm back on the sidewalk of Rhinefield lane, the black of the forest trying to grab me from either side of the road. I feel like hitting something. I feel like bleeding and bruising and bubbling up. I need a wall…or a doorframe. A pillar would also do. Maybe I could opt for one of the trees. They're all narrow and barbed, like thorny fingers pointing at the sky. And the moon. It's barely there tonight, nothing but a sickle cutting through the stars. 

 

 

**Baz**

I'm in the Jag by the time the party is wrung dry, everybody stumbling out of the house, some throwing up behind bushes, others sprawled across the perfectly clipped lawn beyond the driveway. 

The moon is out. It's sad tonight. A dirty clipped fingernail hanging between the stars. 

I feel numb by the time I start up the engine, a quiet kind of numb. There's nothing in me that's moving, not my organs, not my muscles. I'm just stuck. I wasted my whole entire night on _nothing_.  I'm still sober, and I don't know why. I feel like chain-smoking the whole entire cigarette packet tucked away in my back pocket. I feel like chugging down a bottle of anything that will burn bad enough. I feel like driving with my foot jammed against the accelerator until I blast past the edge of the world. I feel like kissing boys until my lips are raw. I feel like making Phillip hate me even more than he already does. 

I feel like making bad decisions. 

But instead, I just drive down to the main road, foot barely pressuring the accelerator, just to keep all of this below the speed limit. 

I can't make bad decisions when I'm worried. At least, that's what I think I am. Worried. About the things Fiona is keeping from me. I should've gotten used to this by now. That's the way my family works. We're built on secrets, enigmas, keeping each other in the dark for as long as possible. Sometimes, it's like a game: 

_I dare you to try and crack me. I bet you can't._

My head is spiraling, those bad thoughts swirling, like dirty tub water going down the drain. I'm so distracted I barely have enough time to jam my foot against the breaks when the headlights hit a patch of - _Venus. Mars. Space dust curls._

The car slivers to a stop, and I say his name before I've got the window down. 

"Simon?" 

He turns, the headlights making his hair burn. 

"Simon?" I say again. For a split second I think he might be a hallucination. Maybe the air in Dev's house was contaminated with something ugly. 

"Baz?" I hear his voice. He sounds real. Too real. I feel like driving away as fast as possible, but I force my foot to stay away from the accelerator. 

He walks towards me until he's leaning into the driver's seat window. I push myself away like I'm afraid he might try something. Like punch me. Or breathe on me. 

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" I ask. I don't know what else to say. 

"Walking," he says, face taut, serious.  

"Right. Because that wasn't clear."

"Well, yeah. I'm - _walking_." He flings an arm out. He's a basher. It's like his limbs have to constantly do something or he'll explode.  

"I got that," I say, and I can feel my left eyebrow tug itself up. He's just so strange. 

Simon steps away, eyes flicking back and forth. He taps a foot against the front tire. 

"Nice car," he says - the way people who don't know cars do. 

I stare. He stares. We're both just staring at each other, and the engine is louder than anything I've ever heard. My chest is vibrating. There's something in there moving too fast.

"Do you - " My mouth is letting words slip before my brain has time to process them. "Do you need a ride?"

_What!?_

His chin jerks out towards me, eyes snapping open. Two 'just blue' puddles in his face.  

"To where?" he breathes. 

"China."

"What?" His eyes go wide. It's like the blue in them might leak, spill over, pour out. 

This guy…I swear. 

" _Home_ , of course, Simon. Where else would you be going at this hour?" I sound like some cross mother scolding her five-year-old son. There might've been a very real moment where he'd thought I'd been serious. 

"No, I - I can walk. I'm fine with walking," he says, and he straightens his back, and before I know it he's stomping down the road, his hair a beacon in the headlights. 

"Thank you," he presses out, but he's too far away for me to know if he was being sarcastic or not. I've never heard him say thank you. 

I let the car jerk into a languid roll until I'm by his side again. Simon's looking dead ahead, and he's walking faster, too. It looks mechanic, the way he swings his arms back and forth. A toy soldier with quaking fists. 

"Don't be ridiculous," I say. "Get in."

"I said I'm fine with walking," he says, still staring at some spot a million miles away.

"Where do you live?"

_Why am I still trying?_

He said he didn't want a ride. I shouldn't waste any more time trying to force him to get into the car. Technically, I've done my good deed for the day. I tried. It's the thought that counts. I can go to sleep tonight knowing I'm a saint. 

It's funny how when I'm tired enough, I can be painfully sarcastic towards myself. 

I'm sad. And this is ridiculous.  

"Why would I tell you?" he snaps, and his neck crunches to the side like he's fighting the urge to just look at me. 

_Just look at me, Simon._

"Well, how long are you going to be walking?" I ask. It comes out a demand, sharp-tongued. 

"Why do you want to know?"

_Why are you so fucking infuriating?_

"Because - "  I feel like slamming my palm against the car horn. He's walking so fast he's practically running. "Because nobody should be walking alone in the middle of nowhere - in the middle of the night."

"This is Brockenhurst. The worst thing that happens around here is cow tipping. I'll be fine."

"Where do you live?"

"Not far."

The Rhinefield community is half an hour from the rest of civilization. He's not from here. He doesn't know how to eat properly. Or talk. Or walk. Or everything else. 

"Look," he says. Loud. It makes my skin drone. "I'm okay. I can take care of myself."

"I didn't imply that you couldn't."

"Well, you sort of did. _Baz_." He stops in his tracks. My foot jerks against the breaks, chest bobbing forward. I can feel the cut of the seat belt just below my jaw. He turns to look at me. It feels like he's trying to gauge my eyeballs out with his stare. I let the air out of my lungs. Long and forceful. 

"Simon," I say. This is the fourth time I'm saying his name while he's listening. It feels strange, like I'm letting him in on something. A secret, perhaps. 

"Get in." The words are so quiet they barely touch my tongue. 

"I - "

" _Simon_."

He grunts. He keeps staring, and I keep staring back. He's the one to blink first, and with another grunt, he stomps around the car. I don't know if he bangs his hand on the hood on purpose. I lean over and press the door open for him. He shuffles in, plops onto the seat with a kind of ferocity that makes the whole entire car bob to the side. He slams the door shut. The _bang_ makes me jerk. I don't know what to say. Simon's a few inches away, and he's already making the molecules move faster, heating them up, turning them into chunks. 

I look at his profile. He clamps his lips between his teeth, and his hands are fists. Everything about him is coiled tight. I think the tiniest nudge might turn him into something that could make the car melt.  

"Hillstedt road, number 23. It's near Ridge road. Just drive down Burreys," he mumbles. It sounds like he's regretting the words the second they're out in the open.

"Seat belt," I say. He grunts. But he straps it across his chest. I roll my window back up and press my foot against the accelerator.

"That's like - " I shake my head. I can't stop wanting for him to look at me. I just don't know whether I want to be looking at him while he does it. "That's an hour away by foot."

"45 minutes," he says. 

I wonder what color his eyes are when there's not enough light to see the blue. 

"You're mad," I say. Because he must be. Completely crazy insane. 

"Well, not all of us have fancy cars or…servants to chauffeur us around," he says, just enough cut in his words to make this feel like a confrontation. I'm not going to let him make this any more difficult. I try to control my breathing. I won't let him get to me. 

_But he already has._

"I like to walk," he says, and he snaps his head around to look at me. I wish he hadn't. 

I try to keep my eyes latched to the front, try to count the road markers on the left. 

"You just don't look like the walking type," I say.

He presses out something between a scoff and a growl. 

"All right. What type do I look like, then?"

I count the road markers to 34 - 35 - 36. 

The burning type. The dynamite type. The out-of-this-world-fallen-from-the-sky type. My type. My type is a bloody disaster. 

"The running type," I say. I clear my throat, but it just globs up more. Thick. Heavy. "Or - I don't know - what happened to that bike of yours?"

"Like I said…I like to walk." He squirms around on his seat, pulling his knees up and pressing them back down, his hands moving from his curls to his thighs to the glovebox. He clears his throat. Then again. He coughs.

"Can you open the windows? All of them?" he asks. 

I can feel his eyes pressed against my cheek. His stares can touch. 

"Please?" he adds. His _please_ is like his _thank you_ , small and forced out like he has to internally kick himself to bust them through his teeth. 

And I hate it. Abhor it. Simon's _please_ makes me want to do anything, everything he asks for. 

My fingers fumble for the switches next to the stick shift, and the windows roll all the way down. I can't help but drive a little faster, let the wind rush into the car, roughen everything up. Simon leans his temple onto the base of the window, his curls spilling out into the open. He presses himself against the car door, squeezes his hands between his thighs. He looks so tiny, folded in on himself, slumping into his skin like it's too big for him. He closes his eyes. I turn on the radio. 

I wonder what he was doing here in the middle of the night. I wonder what's bothering him. I wonder if it's the same thing that made him cry on the terrace that night. I wonder why bad things happen to people who don't deserve it. He's daft and feverish. But I don't think he deserves to be sad or bothered or hurt. I don't think anybody deserves that. (Except for Dev's grandmother.)

I wonder if it's stupid to be jealous of the wind. It gets to touch his hair and his skin and his everything else. 

 

✕

 

I stop at number 23 on Hillstedt road, a two story matchbox-house, grey and flaking. No lights are on. I have this itching feeling that even with the lights on it would look just as vacant. Ghostly. Out of sight, out of mind. 

I turn the radio off, and I look over at Simon. He's still slumped against the car door, his head half-way lolling out of the window. I don't know if he's fallen asleep. His eyes are still closed, chest still moving in that one-beat-too-slow pace. 

I stare at the two moles below his ear and the one above his eyebrow. I trace them into a triangle.

_Like The Summer Triangle,_ I think. _Vega, Deneb, Altair - the brightest stars of summer constellations._

My mother told me that on some dark nights you can be fortunate enough to see a misty cloud of stars running through the triangle. A spiral arm of our own Milky Way Galaxy. When I was a little boy, she used to talk about the sky when I couldn't fall asleep - _"The Summer Triangle is like a looking glass, Basilton. It gives us a chance to take a peek at the worlds up there, the truth - the reality of where we are on the largest scale. There are so many beautiful things that we are too ignorant to see."_ \- and I catch myself replaying her words in my head when I'm rolling around in bed, my eyes too stubborn to stay closed for even a minute. 

"Simon?" I keep my voice on the down-low. He doesn't move. 

"Simon," I say, and I nudge his shoulder. He's warm, solid. I want to let my fingers touch him a little longer. Just a little.

"Yeah? Yeah…I'm - where are - Yeah," he mumbles, sniffling and rubbing his nose. He opens his eyes, and I watch them zero in on me. He jerks up, and his head slams against the roof. 

"Ah - Jesus _fuck_! Wanker!" He jabs a fist against the glove compartment. I don't have enough nerve left to tell him to calm down. 

I think I liked him more when he was sleeping. His heat toned down to something bearable. Now he's just back to blazing. Red jackhammer pounds.

"We're here," I say. "Is this it?" I cock my head towards the house. 

Simon still has a hand stuck in his curls, rubbing. He crunches his eyebrows and looks past me. 

"Yeah." He nods. "Yeah, that's it. Did I fall asleep?"

"You have saliva on your chin." 

The hand in his curls migrates down to the bottom of his face. He wipes at it with the sleeve of his sweater, leaving his mouth smudgy-red. It's puffed and bowed. Girlish. 

He fumbles for his seat belt, which he - _of course_ \- can't seem to get open. 

_What is wrong with this person?_

I bat his hand away, wanting to help him unlock the buckle. 

"No, I can do it myself," he grumbles, his fingers fumbling. 

"You need to - yeah, the…You need to push that one - down. No, _down_ \- not the - Have you never been in a car before?"

"Oh, piss off…I mean, what - what is this!?"  

"A seat belt!" I say, and I can't help but let the heat rise up my throat. Simon starts ripping around at the lock like a dog trying to bite its way out of its collar.

"There's so much going on here!" Simon hits a fist onto the buckle. 

"It's a bloody _seat belt_."

I grip his wrist and tug his hand away. It's tough and warm in my palm, and I'm sure he's strong enough to shake me off. But he doesn't. I get the buckle to budge. My thumb slides against his skin, just enough pressure to feel the bone beneath. I hear his breath stutter, quick, staccato beat, and he rips his hand out of my grip. He rubs at his wrist as if I'd hurt him. We both stare at the loosened belt buckle. 

I feel like slamming my face into the steering wheel - but I also feel like touching him some more. I like his skin. 

My brain is a mess. 

I wait for him to swing the car door open and stumble out. But he's not moving. I don't think he's breathing, either. He looks at the house, and there's this moment where I think this might not be his house. He's staring at it like he's never seen it before. Like he doesn't know what's in it. Or who. 

But why would he lie?

"Baz?" He's looking at me, and his eyes look colorless in the dark. Not alive, not bursting, burning. It's like everything in his head has been told be quiet. 

"What if - " He bobs up and down, lips clamped between his teeth. "What if you just kept - " He stares at the steering wheel, then at my foot resting against the breaks, then back at the steering wheel, so heated he might melt the leather straight off. 

_Hopeful_ , flashes through my mind, bright and warm, like that feeling you get when you close your eyes against the sun. 

"What?" I ask. My left foot twitches. I pull it back from the breaks and press it into the floor in hopes that maybe it will stop twitching. It doesn't. 

Simon rips his eyes away from the steering wheel. He shakes his head. 

"Never mind," he says. He doesn't look at me. "Doesn't matter." 

He leans to the side, and his fingers curl into the handle of the car door. 

"Thanks…I guess. For the - yeah," he mumbles. 

But he just keeps sitting there, staring at his lap with his bottom lip clamped between his teeth. I don't know what he's waiting for. I don't know what _I'm_ waiting for. And I want him to leave. But I also don't. 

I don't. 

_What if you just kept driving?_

I slam my foot against the accelerator. The engine roars. Simon falls back into his seat. 

"Wait, where are you - "

"I don't know. Anywhere," I cut him off. 

This is irrational and impulsive and preposterous. And there are not a lot of things in my life that are preposterous. But ever since Simon that scarce amount has turned into somewhat of an influx. I'm drowning in preposterous, and I might have just turned into a kidnapper. If I don't stop - that is. And I don't know if I want to. It feels like it's out of my hands. My headspace has been shutdown. It's running on impulse, on everything from my neck down, from my chest to my gut. 

" _Anywhere_?" Simon says over the engine roaring. I don't know if imagined him saying it.

"What if I just kept driving?" I say. "What if I just kept driving?" I say again because it feels so good. "I'll just - I'll follow the road until we hit a dead end."

It sounds mental. I sound metal.  

I'm scared Simon might scream or tuck and roll straight out of the car. Because he would. I'm sure he would. I'm racing down Ridge road, the adrenaline jackhammering beneath my skin, and I think I might've forgotten how to breathe - and Simon says, "Make a right here."

I swerve the car to right, the headlights burning up a narrow road. I shift to fourth gear. We're skyrocketing. 

"Why?"

"The coast," he says, and it sounds like he's caught in a haze, like he's saying things without knowing if he's actually saying them. 

"The coast," I say. 

"The best dead end."

"This is ridiculous."

"Stupid."

"Yes. Stupid." I look at him, quickly, not long enough to really see anything but his hair, before my eyes flick back to the road. 

"Seat belt," I say. I watch him fumble for it from the corner of my eyes. 

And then he's laughing. He's actually laughing. It makes me feel like I'm being rammed by a freight train. Simon is laughing. Because of this. Because of me. I'm the reason for that sound coming out of his mouth.  

This is irrational and impulsive and preposterous and ridiculous and stupid. 

I'm kidnapping Simon. 

This might be the worst and best thing I've done all summer. Or maybe ever. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this might be obvious, but I just sort of wanted to stress the fact that a lot of characters have altered traits because of the story background. Everybody's a lot more sad. And dramatic. And in need of super many very much a lot of cuddles <3  
> And if you thought I wasn't going to bring up the super-cliche of Baz comparing Simon's moles to constellation patterns, thEN YOU WERE WRONG MY FRIEND! I AM A DISNEY PRINCESS! THIS SHIT'S MY LIFEFORCE!  
> Also, Baz thinks Simon is an awkward alien who flopped onto earth just to mess with him. Ah, yes...our precious dork children. 
> 
> (I know I promised a chapter estimate, but I changed a major part of the plot - to squeeze in more potential pain because I'm a terrible human being - so now I'm back to free-forming...sort of...gah! Brain why!) 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you're having a wonderful, wonderful day. Here's an internet hug :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's another sensible vegetable/fruit joke: 
> 
> When do you know a banana wants to dance?  
> When you see a banana shake!
> 
> (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Simon**

The wind is in my hair. In my mouth. In my head. Everywhere at once. Heart thundering, lungs trying to cushion the beats. There's something alive in my rib cage. _Alive_.  

I wonder if this is what it feels like to fall from the sky. 

I'm still laughing. I don't know why I started in the first place. Maybe it was the only thing my brain could grab first. Or maybe it just felt better than screaming or crying or punching. Laughing doesn't feel right. But it feels better than every other option. I'm wheezing, chest heaving for air, and I'm getting too much of it. The wind's blasting it down my throat, into my lungs. Breathing like this is a never-ending blow. 

All I can think is: _FASTER, FASTER, FASTER!_

I want him to drive forever. I want him to drive until we hit the coast and crash into the ocean. And then I want us to go further, let the wheels gnaw their way into the ocean floor, let the engine catapult us through the water like a submarine. Screw physics.

I don't want to stop. I don't want him to stop. 

Him. 

I look at him, still laughing. Baz is staring dead ahead. His hair is alive, jet-black, soaring around his skull, whipping, licking at his skin. We hit the main road. The engine roars. My heart roars right back. Baz is slammed into the driver's seat, one of his hands tight around the steering wheel, the other shifting to fifth gear. I can feel the rumble beneath the car, that kick to _FASTER!_   

I can't hear my laughter. But I can feel it. In my chest right next to my lion-roar heartbeat. I can't stop looking at him - at the spark in the right-hand corner of his mouth. I wonder if he's going to let it turn into a smile. I catch myself stupidly hoping.  

 

✕

 

I don't know how long we've been driving. I don't know when I stopped laughing. I blinked, and from one moment to the other, it was just us breathing and the wind breathing right back and the wheels of the car going round and round.

The rush in my head has died down to something bearable. I feel like I'm waking up, getting sober. I'm back. I think reality is a weird place to be in sometimes. I'm sitting in a car with a stranger, and we're driving, and it feels like we're never going to stop because we wouldn't know how. 

I'm still staring at that right-hand corner. The spark is gone. Baz's mouth is just a smoothed out leftover of an 'almost smile'. I'm still left with stupidly hoping. 

He read my mind. He looked at me and cracked my head open, and he dug his way into the middle of it all, and he found those words crouching in a mess. 

_What if you just kept driving?_

He took them. Those words. He stole them away. It felt like a hit when he said them out loud, like alcohol blaring beneath your skin, like drugs going boom in your gut, like a sugar rush painting your brain neon pink. Maybe that was why I laughed. Or maybe it was because he said all those words twice.  

I watch Baz open his mouth. He's saying something, but the wind is ruthless, and it's ripping his words apart. 

"What?" I say. I can't hear myself. 

Baz shifts in his seat and turns his head towards me for a split second. His eyes graze my cheek. And then he's back to staring at the road. 

"What?" I shout this time. He shouts something back. I shake my head. The windows roll up, and the wind is being pushed out. And the sound. It's a loud kind of quiet. My ears are numbed, ringing with the leftovers of an explosion. 

"What?" I whisper. I feel like I need to make my voice as small as possible or I'll hurt something. 

"I said - " He clears his throat. It's careful, too. We're being careful. "I said why were you back there in the first place?"

It takes me a while until I understand what he's saying. It takes me even longer to find an answer. The wind grabbed everything inside of my head and stole them away.  

"To fix something," I say, finally, my voice still too afraid of being loud. I'm just breathing out words. I curl to the side, try to face him against the pull of the seat belt straps. They're squeezing my body into the seat making it hard to breathe. But I want to look at his mouth some more. At the right-hand corner. Maybe I'll miss something if I look away for too long. 

We're in the middle of nowhere. It's in the middle of the night. I'm tired. So maybe I can get away with thinking about things like that. Things I shouldn't be thinking about. Things that make me want to hurt him but also not, touch him but also not. 

Yes and no and no and yes. 

"And did you?" he asks. Quietly. 

"I might've made it worse," I say. I think about the light in Agatha's room spilling out of her pink-patterned curtains. I kissed her once with her back pressed against the window panes, the fuzz of those curtains tickling my cheeks. She tasted like fruit punch and silence.  

"And you?" I ask, jerking my head to the side because I don't want to think about Agatha. Or anything and everything in Brockenhurst. I want to leave all of it behind for a while. I want to forget that a place like that could even exist. 

Baz is staring at the road, the headlights in his eyes, turning them yellow, warming them up.He bites the inside of his cheek.

"Baz?" It's the first time I'm saying his name somewhere quiet. I can feel the pop of my lips, teeth grazing the letters, tongue soft. I've never been so careful with a word. A name. His name. 

"Yes?" he mumbles, and his eyes flick to his hands clutching the steering wheel, then to me. But only quickly. It's always so quickly. 

"Why were you back there?" I ask, and I press my cheek against the headrest. Looking at him not looking at me. 

He chews at the inside of his cheek for a while, until he says, "To try and avoid fixing something."

I nod. I don't know why. There's a part of me that wants to know more. And then there's a part of me that doesn't. I'm not sure if I want to find out more about the things in his head. That would turn him into less of a stranger. I don't know if I want him to be that. 

Less of a stranger. More than a stranger. 

There's not much space left in my head to fit one more person. Someone to think about, to worry about.  

I look at his right hand, knuckles tough-taut. I wrap my fingers around my left wrist. I imagine I can feel an indent branded into my skin. A leftover. He held me tight. 

My stomach's doing that thing again. Leaking colors. Angry-red and something else. I clutch at my gut hoping the pressure will make it stop. But that just makes it gurgle. My body has the tendency to make weird sounds at inappropriate moments. Like in silent exam halls or waiting rooms. Or cars with pretty strangers. My stomach grumbles again. 

"We can go stop by a gas station…get you something to eat," Baz says. He can make the simplest of things sound condescending. I think it might be a gift. A fucking evil one. 

"No - I'm okay," I say. 

_Gurgle_. 

I press both of my hands on my stomach. Baz cocks an eyebrow. 

"I don't have any - "

"I'll pay," he says. 

"I'm not letting you pay."

"So you'd rather starve?"

"I'm not! I mean, I'm not - hungry." _Gurgle_. "I'm not hungry." _Shut up._

"Your stomach's trying to eat itself. I'll pay."

"I'm not hungry!" I kick myself up in my seat so fast the seat belt chokes my chest. I cough. My stomach gurgles. Loud and angry.

Baz leans his head to the side, that fucking eyebrow rising up into the sky. I huff. I press my hands further into my stomach, silently screaming _shut-the-fuck-ups_ at anything in my body that is willing to listen. It just gets worse. 

"Try to not break any more flower pots, and we can use that as compensation," he says. 

I really just want to shave his eyebrows off. He'd probably draw them back on with a sharpie. Make them super evil. Forever cocked. Both of them. 

"That was one time," I mumble. 

"Eight."

"How do you - "

"I just do." His eyebrow smoothes out. Even in a neutral position, it's arched and judging the world. Constantly. "I'll pay. Your stomach's getting on my nerves."

"It's not like I'm doing this on purpose!" 

"I'll pay. Now be quiet."

_Gurgle_. 

His chest puffs up with a sharp intake of breath. I hunch forward and hug my gut in hopes that will muffle the sounds. I press my cheek against the glove compartment. 

"Why are you being nice to me?" I ask. 

Baz shifts in his seat. I stare at the right-hand corner of his mouth. I swear I see something flash.  

"Why are you being uncharacteristically bearable?" he asks. 

Neither of us answer. For a moment, it's just my stomach grumbling and the sound of the wheels speeding across a never-ending road. 

"What about we just - What if we…" His voice turns into something quiet, trailing off and losing itself for a second. "What if we pretend that this is normal. Just for now. For this."

_Just for now. For this._

Because we're so far away from everything else. Because we're in this car, and it's just us - and the whale mating calls coming out of my stomach. Because right now, we're the only two people in the galaxy.  

"What is - _this_?" I ask, and I squish my cheek further against the glove compartment, feel the vibrations of the car shake through my head. 

"Something," he says. His eyebrows crumple up, hands crunching around the steering wheel so hard his skin loses all color. His veins look like river creaks. "Something that - I don't know - isn't that bad." 

"Something that isn't that bad," I repeat. It feels good on my tongue. Warm.

The corner of Baz's mouth loosens up, and it crawls up the flush of his cheek. I stare at his smile until my eyes tingle. 

_Something that isn't that bad._

 

✕

 

We stop by a 24-hour open diner rip-off next to a gas station, sleepy and decaying like in American road trip movies. Baz orders me three burgers with a kind of confidence that makes me want to kick him in the balls. He thinks one won't make my stomach shut up. And he's right. And fuck him.  

He lasts two minutes with me eating in the car before he pulls over and forces me to eat outside. All I did was get ketchup on the wind shield. Nothing you can't wipe away. 

"You're a dildo," I mumble from where I'm sitting on the concrete, fishing the pickles out of the burgers and slapping them onto a napkin. 

"You're atrocious." Baz is leaning against the side of the car, a hand curled around one of those tiny disposable coffee cups, a lit cigarette squeezed between his fingers. The coffee's black. As black is it could possibly get. There's nothing in it. No milk. No sugar. It's just black. Black coffee. Because of course, he'd be the kind of person who drinks black coffee. What's the joy in that?

Black coffee and cigarette smoke. And bergamot. He smells like bergamot. Maybe all of it suits him in some terrible way. 

I roll my eyes. He rolls his eyes right back. He can do it better than me. Without even blinking. It's one perfect eyeball looping. 

_Fucking dildo._

"I don't like these," I say, and I hold up the napkin with the pickles. 

Baz crosses his ankles, takes a long sip of his coffee, then takes a long inhale with the cigarette in his mouth. I stare at him, holding the napkin up higher. His throat bobs in the dark. Fast. He's all sharp action, always on the tip of his toes, ready to surge. 

"Yes? And?" He shakes his head and crosses his arms. He leans his chin against the lid of the coffee cup. 

"Do you want them?" I stretch my arm out further, one of the pickles gliding off in a ketchup-y slip'n slide. It plops onto the concrete. "Or I'll throw them onto the -"

"Give them here. Don't throw anything. You might hurt yourself." He says it like he's talking to a kindergartener. It makes my gut bubble. 

"Shove them up your arse." I hand him the napkin. 

"Charming." He hands me his cigarette. 

And because all of this is so strange, he actually eats my pickles, and I actually smoke his cigarette. As if this were completely normal. Then again, we said we were going to pretend like this was.

_Just for now. For this._

Maybe the strange part is it's not even that hard. 

I haven't had a fag in forever. It's still terrible, and I still hate myself for liking it. Back in tenth year, Penny and I promised each other we would stop smoking after Mrs. Possibelf, our biology teacher, forced the class to watch a documentary about the effects of it on the human body. Like lung cancer and erectile dysfunction. For a whole entire week, Penny kept babbling about how cigarettes could make your body parts die. I ended up having this massive nightmare about my todger turning purple and falling off and Agatha popping up and screaming at me because now we wouldn't be able to make any children. _Make_. Like starting a family was something industrial to her. Dream-Agatha has always been a special kind of bizarre.  

I try to swallow away the itch in my throat, but all the tar just makes it worse. I don't want to choke in front of Baz. But my body hates me, and my lungs clench, and I cough the smoke back up. I jab a fist into my chest. 

Baz smirks. It's an ugly thing. I wonder how a mouth like that can turn from warm to wretched in a matter of seconds. It can say mean things. But also kind of, maybe, sort of likable things. It can spit, cut, snap. It can breathe out words and make them crawl under your skin, make them dig. 

And it can kiss boys like it's the end of the world. 

"Sod off," I mumble and stuff the cigarette back into my mouth, let the smoke fog up my brain until my thoughts go hazy. 

His smirk turns into a smile. From wretched to warm in a matter of seconds. That mouth is in constant mutation.  

 

✕

 

It's three AM. 

I feel like a runaway. Chasing the night. Trying to outrun the sun for as long as possible. It's just the road and the headlights and The Beatles playing on the radio. My head is pressed against the cool of the window. I'm humming to _Mr. Moonlight._ I know Baz is, too. I don't think he thinks I can hear him. I try to be as quiet as possible, just so I can hear them a little better, those low sounds coming from the center of his chest. I close my eyes, feel the smoke heavy on my tongue. Baz lit another cigarette, and we're passing it back and forth, the smell of it mixing with the lyrics fizzing out of the radio.

 

_Mr. Moonlight_

_You came to me one summer night_

_And from your beam you made my dream_

_And from the world you sent my girl_

_And from above you sent us love_

_And now she is mine_

_I think you're fine_

 

"'Cause we love you, Mr. Moonlight." Baz breathes out the melody. There's nothing jagged cutting through the words, nothing mean, sharp. I wonder how often he uses that voice. The kind that has just enough rasp in it to make your head buzz. The kind that cups your ears and makes you feel like his lips are so close they're almost grazing your skin. 

I stop humming, and I just listen to him and that strange tone of his. 

What if he said my name like that? Just breath and rasp and smoke. I'd probably punch him so hard he'd babble for days. And then I'd kick him stupid afterward.

That's all I ever want to do: punch him, kick him, hurt him, touch him. 

And then I don't know. 

  

✕

 

"I haven't been here in forever," Baz says, stepping out of the car.

I'm already standing at the edge of the small parking lot bordering the cliffs. Bordering the ocean, the ends of the earth. 

_I haven't been here in forever, either,_ I think. 

Barton-on-Sea, a tiny coastal town in New Forest, lonesome, forgotten, just another _something_ in the middle of nowhere. One main road running along the seaside, little grey houses set up by a strip of lonely streetlights, sputtering and spitting, trying their best to stay alive. A graveyard by the ocean.  

I look up at the only functioning streetlight reigning over the empty parking lot. It's right above me. I can hear it buzz louder than the wind. A cluster of bugs swarms around it, their tiny bodies hitting the bulb. _Fizz. Pang. Fry._ I watch the wind rip them away by their wings. 

"Hey! Are you coming or not?" I hear Baz shout. He's standing on the plane of grass bordering the parking lot, wind in his hair, wind in his clothes. It's getting more ruthless by the second, pounding across the plane and rolling down into the ocean. 

I remember all those times I drove here with Penny. We'd chain our bikes to the post of a streetlight, and then we'd race across the plane, stumbling and ripping each other to our knees to make sure the other would lose, and we'd run faster and faster and only stop right before the edge of the cliffs, sneakers skidding into the dirt and the grass, slipping, tumbling - until we were inches away from a million mile drop. Infinity and oblivion close enough to touch. The end of everything at our little fingertips. 

My heart picks up a beat. That lion-roar beat. And then I'm running across the grass, running past Baz, and I can hear him shout behind me, and I don't know if I'm laughing or not. There's something coming out of my throat, but it's too loud for me to hear what it is. My feet carry me faster and faster and faster. I stumble. I get back up. I race. I skid. My hands bash onto the ground. But I'm on my feet. Salt on my tongue. Rush in my ears. And I'm reaching for the sky and the ocean. 

 

 

**Baz**

I think he might be completely mental.

And burning. And alive. And blasting through the atmosphere like a meteorite. He's stumbling towards the cliffs, howling and laughing so loud it's like he's trying to fight the wind away with his voice, challenge it to a battle. Because he's a force of nature, too. Loud. Everywhere at once. 

The streetlights on the main road aren't strong enough to keep away the dark farther than a few feet. It doesn't take long until Simon's lost in the night. All I can hear is his voice, the wind, the rush of the waves. 

I rip my phone out of my jacket and  use the light of the display to lead me across the grass. 

"Simon!" I shout. 

He's still laughing. I don't know how people are capable of laughing so much. Simon's laugh sounds like a snigger strapped to a roller coaster. Plus, he snorts. It's the kind of laugh that's really hard not to like. Because it tickles your stomach and makes you see the sun. 

"Simon!" I shout. Louder this time. So loud my throat burns.  

"Here!" he shouts back. He can shout louder than me, so much louder. Everything about him is a blare. 

The light of the display hits a patch of his hair. Space dust. He's standing right at the edge of the cliff, toes touching absolutely nothing, and his arms are stretched out towards the sky, the ocean. 

It's too dark to make out where either begin or end. We're standing in front of a colossal black screen.

Simon's not laughing anymore. I watch the way his shoulders go up and down in a jackrabbit tempo. He's  burning away the dark. Because doesn't he bloody always. 

"Simon," I say, and I don't mind not being loud enough to fight against the wind. Not the way he can. 

Simon lets his arms flop to his sides, and he bends down to sit on the grass curling around the brink of the cliff. He's back to calm and small, like his volume has been turned down. 

_He's strange_ , I think. _Really, really strange._

I bend down and crawl next to him, but I try to keep my distance from the edge. When I was a kid, I used to come here with my mother, and we'd fly kites on the plane with aunt Fiona and Vera. Every time we came here, my mother would say I mustn't get too close to the cliffs or I'll slip and fall. She only ever let me look past the edge when she held me by my waist, fingers curled into the loop of my trousers, holding on as tight as she could. She was always afraid something would happen to me, always afraid I'd stumble and bleed and she'd lose me forever. To her, a scrape was a flesh wound, a twisted ankle was a broken bone, and a small fight was the end of the world. I can't imagine having a child. I'd probably be just as afraid for it as she was for me. Because I'd never know when the world might take it, hurt it, make it feel things I'd never wish upon a living thing that shared my heartbeat. 

I'm glad the dead don't know what happens to the living. If my mother were to see me now - it would kill her all over again. 

I turn my phone off and shove it into the pocket of my jacket. Simon stretches out his legs and lets them dangle over  the edge. 

The cliffs aren't steep. They crumble down in mild slopes, like rubble staircases covered in shrubs and patches of yellow. Yellow toadflax. My mother used to grow those flowers in the greenhouse. She called them 'bumble-homes' because they're only ever visited by bumblebees during mid summer. 

I press myself further towards the edge. I imagine I can feel my mother's hands on my hips pulling me back. It just makes me push myself even further. My feet cross the brink. They're up in the air.

_Look, mum. Are you seeing this?_ _No worries. I'm fine. No worries. Never._

I angle my head towards the sky. I can't see the North Star. I can't see the moon, either. But I pretend I'm looking at her in that space between - her home -  and she's smiling, and I'm smiling back. 

"Am I supposed to like you now?" Simon's voice rips me out of my head. 

"What?" I ask, head going hot fast. 

_Did he really just_ -

"Am I - Am I supposed to like you now?" he asks. It sounds like something wary. 

I swallow, angle my head back down and stare straight ahead. At the black and the nothing in front of us. 

"I don't know," I say. Because I don't. I don't even know if I want it to be a _yes_. What would I do with a _yes_? I would know what to do with a _no_ : absolutely nothing. Maybe a _no_ would be a relief. Maybe a _no_ would help bring everything back to normal, to order, a moderate kind of fucked up - not an anarchic, hot-red default in the system of the universe.  

"Well…do you?" I ask. And I lean away from him, not enough to be obvious (although, I don't know why I don't want it to be obvious because screw him). 

The wind slashes through the space between us. I lean away even more. Simon leans in closer. I don't know if it's intentional. There's this bucket of warmth angled to a tip-over right at the top of my spine, between my shoulder blades. If he comes any closer, it might topple over and spill. 

Simon squirms. He's breathing louder than the wind. 

"Do you?" he asks. 

"Do I what?"

"Do you like me?"

And the bucket falls forward, warmth spilling over, down my back, my naked skin. Everything's prickling.  

"Am I supposed to?" I say. I swallow. I look at him. He looks at me. I'm glad it's so dark. I can't see anything except for the outline of his hair catching the faraway glow of the streetlights. There's enough space between us to breathe without having to share the same air. I wonder what Simon's air would be like. 

Hot? Heavy? Loud in my lungs? 

But all I can taste is the wind, cold and seaside salty. 

Simon sucks in a puff of breath, and his head snaps. He's back to facing the dark in front of us. It's getting brighter, just enough of something to see a thick line cutting through the horizon. The darkest shade of blue. 

"My middle name is Snow."

" _What_?" 

"I felt like - " He makes a hiccup sound. Maybe it's the start of a laugh. Or maybe it was an actual hiccup. "Felt like saying something fucking stupid."

_Don't you always?_

I smile. I'm happy it's too dark for him to see. 

"Snow? Spelled like - "

"Snow," he says. "You know, like the stuff that falls from the sky." I can hear his clothes ruffle, and I imagine him bashing his hands up in the air. 

"So…your full name is Simon Snow -"

"Saunders."

"Simon Snow Saunders," I say. "That's bloody ridiculous. You shouldn't be allowed to let your child walk around with a name like that."

"Oh - because Beselanius…oltonus is so much better."

" _Basilton_."

"'S what I said."

I roll my eyes.  I can feel Simon's stare on my cheek, this digging pressure, like a fingertip. 

"What?" I say. 

"Now you say something stupid."

I try to turn my snort into a cough. It comes out as a choke. 

_Strange, this one. Really, really strange._

I breathe in until my chest bloats. 

"Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch," I breathe out. 

"What?"

"My full name."

Simon blurts out a giggle. It's like having someone fling a handful of rainbow-colored rubber balls down your ear canals. 

"Tyrannus?" he says, his giggles turning it into gibberish. "Really? Like Tyrannosaurus?"

"Yes."

" _Jesus_."

"Technically."

"You're still a dildo." Simon shifts, and he throws himself onto his back with a thud. 

_ You're still atrocious.  _

I let my spine curl down until I can feel the grass at the back of my head. The blue line on the horizon is getting thicker, melting into something close to the color of Fiona's nightgown. 

"Snow," I say. Snow. Like the stuff that falls from the sky. It's all so ironic it hurts. "Simon. Simon Snow. Snow Simon. Snow." 

 

 

**Simon**

I think I like it. It's the way he says it. The way it makes me feel. Like getting touched in the dark or kissed by a stranger. 

_Simon_. 

Like something terrifying. 

_Simon_. 

And wild. 

"Simon?"

And thrilling. 

I look at him. The wind's in his hair and in mine. And it feels like it's in my head now, too. Air in motion. Invisible turbulence. 

"Yeah?" I say. 

"You're strange."

"What kind of life do you have to think _I'm_ the strange one?"

"You think I'm strange?"

"Completely. It's all in your name."

" _You_ have a strange name."

"Middle name."

"Snow." 

He can make that sound terrifying, too. 

_Snow_. 

And wild. 

_Snow_. 

And thrilling. 

 

 

**Baz**

"Just - don't call me that," he huffs. 

"Just the more reason to do so." 

The upcoming sunrise is spitting enough light for me to see the Summer Triangle on his face. I end up staring at his nose. Dipped and kicked at the tip. Child-like. 

"Does your whole entire family have creepy names?" Simon asks. He looks up at the sky. It's changing color, going from black to blue like a fresh bruise. 

"Creepy?"

"Yeah, like, you know, sort of - you know, like, Victorian villains," 

"Our names are not -"

"Mordelia." He cuts me off. 

_Yeah, okay. Fine._

"She's your sister, right?"

"Yeah."

"Bloody evil name. Mordelia…Is she as evil as her name? Or - I - you know, I don't know. Was she just, like, having a bad day…that time…in the greenhouse?"

That feels like forever ago. I remember the way he looked at me. It was like a silent challenge. 

Simon Snow Saunders. Blue and breathing and stupidly brave. 

"It's difficult," I finally manage to say, and I look up at the sky, too. It makes the breathing easier. "Sometimes, she can be more evil than her name, and then sometimes…she'll be less." 

"Do you have any more?"

"Pardon?"

Simon jerks his head to the side to face me. 

"Did you just say 'pardon'?" He makes it sound like a shocking revelation. 

"What? It's proper English." 

"Proper…" Simon snorts. I feel like pushing him down the cliff. But that's a stupid thought because I'd probably jump right after him. 

Simon starts laughing. And it's full-fledged. And terrible. And wonderful. 

"At least I don't talk like I was raised in a barn," I say. 

"What if I told you I was?" He snorts. I try to hate it. 

"I'm actually quite positive that you were. Your manners are repulsive."

"Dildo."

"My point exactly."

"Is this, like, the real you?" He rolls closer, so close I can feel his breath jab my ear. I lean away. "Do you just pretend to be a nasty prick? When in reality you can't stand not saying - you know, fuckin' - please and thank you." 

"How did we even - where - what was the question?"

"You probably get all prissy when someone chews with their mouth open."

"When you do it, yes. It's vile."

"Thank you."

I have to force myself not to physically injure him. He's aggravating.  

"So…" he pulls the vowel out of his mouth like chewing gum. "Do you have any more?"

"Any more _what,_ Simon?" I make it sound like a demand. 

"Tiny demon siblings."

I sigh and say, "Three more." Maybe I hate myself for answering. 

"Jesus. I bet they also have evil names."

"Octavia?"  

"Practically the same as Mordelia," he says, a hand coming up to bash around. He barely misses my head. 

"All right…what about Tybalt?"

"Evil. Absolutely."

"Yeah." I lift up my right hand and show him the crescent scar on the stretch of skin between my forefinger and thumb. A jagged, silvery half-moon. Tybalt threw a tantrum when I stole his nose. It took two people to pry his teeth out of my skin. 

"He's not even a year old," I say. 

Simon lets out a puff of breath, making his mouth sputter. 

"Bonkers." He turns and looks at me. It's too close, and the sky is bright enough for me to see something, so I look away. 

I clear my throat and say, "Arabella. She's Octavia's twin."

Simon's staring. I can feel his eyes. The languid tempo in my chest turns into a dribble. I hope the wind's loud enough for him to not hear it. 

"Mmmhh…not so evil?" he says. 

I shake my head, grass grinding.  

"She isn't," I say. 

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Arabella's the quiet twin. Sometimes, I think her sister stole her voice while they were in the womb. And her words. Last year, Octavia invented her own language, with its own alphabet and grammar. It's smooth, something that sounds like French and lullabies. Arabella can't even ask me to hand her the cereal box when we're eating breakfast. She'll just languidly slide down her chair whilst staring at me, and then she'll crawl under the table and pop up on the other side to grab whatever she needs. She's like a shy cat, a shadow slipping through the hallways of our home. She's quiet, practically invisible. 

"So you've got three siblings?" Simon asks. 

"Four."

"There's one more?"

"No, you're just incapable of counting."

Simon looks back up at the sky. It takes him a while. 

"Oh…yeah," he says. "The baby. Four. How come I never see them?"

"Be glad you don't." I tug the sleeves of my jacket over my fingertips. "Playdates. I think? I don't know."  It's sad that I don't know.  I huff and shake my head from side to side. The world moves like a seesaw. 

"Why are we even talking about this?" I press out. 

"I don't know." Simon shrugs. "I just…want to know more about - about…I mean, you know, I - about, about - " He's stumbling over his words. His breath is getting louder. I turn to look at him, my eyebrows scrunching. 

"About my Victorian villain family?" I say. 

Simon puffs up his cheeks and lets the air out slowly. His head rolls to the side, and he's looking at me, and I don't know why I don't look away. I wonder how a person can look like a cosmic storm. Like everything up there thrown into one bright, curly-haired mess. 

"About you," he says, and everything about him goes quiet. Lights off. Storm frozen mid-orbit.  I feel like he's bruising my eyes with his stare. His 'just blue' stare. 

I clear my throat, rip my eyes away from his, cut the contact. I pretend that it hurts.  

"What about you?" I ask. It's so blatant I hold back the urge to slam my palm against my forehead. "Any siblings?" I add. Like that will make it smoother. 

He's still facing me, but I don't know if he's still looking at me. I can't feel his eyes on my skin. Maybe they're closed.  

"No," he says. And he's still so quiet. "It's just my dad and me."

_No mother_ , I think. 

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to just have my dad and aunt Fiona. Would it be easier? More lonely? Or maybe even less?

"Was that your house? I mean…back there? Or are you just paranoid of strangers knowing where you live," I say, trying to tug myself out of my thoughts. 

"That was my house," Simon says - the way children say they're afraid of the dark. 

"Then why - " I shift. I smooth a hand over my hair. 

"Why what?"

"Why did you look like you were afraid to go in?"

_Why did you want me to keep driving?_

I hold my breath. I wait. But Simon doesn't answer. For a while, it's just the wind and the back-and-forth rush of the waves. I'm left wondering. 

I don't know when I finally get him to talk again. I don't even know why I want him to talk. Half the things that come out of his mouth are gibberish. Maybe it's that other half, then. The half that makes me drum faster, makes me smile, makes me open my mouth to let warm things slip past my tongue. Nothing sharp. Nothing mean. I haven't heard myself like that in so long. It's like I'm a kid again, and I've just figured out how to play around with the alphabet. 

We talk about stupid things, things so stupid I don't care about saying the wrong things, about sounding insane, and it's like I could keep talking until my mouth goes sore and my voice breaks off and vanishes forever. It's strange when you don't care. Everything rolls past you, nothing really sticks, and that's okay because that means there's no overthinking, no pondering, no unnecessary holding-on. You just keep going, and you don't mind wasting any time. Because it's time well wasted. 

With unapologetically staring at him.

He's sitting now, cross-legged, the side of his head perched on his knuckles. I'm still lying on my back.  

This might be the first time I'm actually looking at him. All of him. And I'm too busy with realizing it that I don't even stop to wonder whether he's doing the same. 

It's not like I'm being hit by epiphanies. Just by details. Or things so obvious I would have never thought they'd be worth thinking about. 

Like the scars all over his knuckles and the jagged one above his right ear, a cut that went so deep no hair grew back. Or the way his ears stand off. Or the way he dresses like Kurt Cobain, like someone you'd expect to work at a 90's vinyl shop or a tattoo parlor or a dive bar where the musicians play on a stage made out of pallets. I wonder if he only owns giant sweaters. And his jeans are loose and always ripped at the knees. It never looks intentional. I wonder how often he hurts himself. I wonder if the scars on his hands are of any indication.

I bet he's the type that always has toothpaste on his chin in the morning. The type that doesn't know how to properly tie a tie. The type that drags dirt into the house like a dog. The type that doesn't own a comb…or a blazer…or aftershave. The type that never unties his shoes, just squeezes his feet in and out, the knots in the laces permanent. I look down at his feet. Dirty Converse. 

I bet he's the type that has never been told to care about what he looks like. And I think I hate him for it. Just a bit. Because that's all I've ever been told. 

_("Wear this, not that. Use this for that, and that for this. Back straight. Don't slouch. Shoes shined. Teeth clean. Hair out of your face, so they can see that smile, Basilton. You're supposed to look proper. Not homeless. I said back straight!")_

That's my father's favorite thing to do. He enjoys pointing out every single flaw. The curve of your back is always a target. 

I think it would be nice to not care for a little longer, to let everything roll past me, to let nothing stick and to be okay with that because that would mean there'd be no overthinking, no pondering or unnecessary holding-on. 

I look at Simon's sweater. It's huge, the neck so stretched out it's almost slipping down his left shoulder. He's bare there. From collarbone to shoulder blade, this stretch of freckled skin. 

The word _bite_ flashes through my head. And then _touch_. And then _would his sweater fit me?_

 

✕

 

It's a crap sunrise. It's the kind that just lights up the sky behind a thick layer of clouds. I end up looking at Simon from the corner of my eyes, watch his hair catch fire and his skin turn lukewarm. All colors and motions and loud breath. Looking at Simon when the lights go on is better than any crap sunrise. 

 

✕

 

_Why did I want to keep driving?_

I don't know if I could answer. I wouldn't know where to start. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like this story needed a little break, and I really, really wanted Simon and Baz to have their own little chapter :3 I wrote this while listening to Blue Neighbourhood on repeeeaaat. Literally every song is about snowbaz, and the album's only been out for two days, and Troye's already fucking me up, like, kill me now jesusfuckingchristholychocobabystarfishmothermaryof - *lies down*
> 
> So being sappy is my favorite thing ever...Baz thinks Simon is a freaking unicorn. Because he most definitely is. Also, this Simon is less oblivious than canon Simon, mostly because he's aware of his sexuality, and he doesn't have a chosen-one-prophecy to be distracted by. 
> 
> I drafted out the new plot, and this fic might be under/over 15 chapters? The story gets painful, and I apologize...T'is the season...FOR ANGST HAAAAAAA (Also, this is me sending out feel-better-smooches in advance and some hearts, too <3)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO YES SHITTY VEGETABLE JOKE:
> 
> Knock, Knock. Who’s there? Lettuce. Lettuce Who?
> 
> Lettuce in and you’ll find out...
> 
> (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Simon**

I can't get him out of my head.  
****

I can't get out of bed, either. I don't know what time it is. My windows are leaking orange. I'm burrowed into my sheets, headphones squeezing my skull. The 1975 is blasting my ears raw and open: sex, midnight cities, music for cars. I stare at the Nirvana poster taped to my ceiling until my eyes twitch close.

I don't remember how I got into bed. He must've driven me home and kicked me out of his car. There's this stupid thing in my head that wishes he hadn't. What if he'd just kept driving? Past my doorstep, past my house, past the road, past this town and the next. Just to leave all over again, pretend I didn't exist before him and his car, like I was nothing, and I was waiting for some stranger to drive me to the ends of the earth.

I wonder if he's still a stranger after yesterday. Technically today. But I like the thought of this being the morning after. After last night, after dreaming and him and dreaming him.

I turn the volume up on full blast in hopes Matt Healy will croon my thoughts away. If anything, it gets worse.

When does a stranger turn into someone? Someone important enough for you to think about. Someone you want to keep in your head.

I'd have to clean up and rearrange if I were to keep him in my head. Maybe I'd have to throw some things out, too. Sometimes, I think my brain is the equivalent of a child's bedroom: crayon-colour-stained, food crumbs stuck to the carpet, a minefield of building blocks and eatable glue and nightmares about the Boogeyman. This tiny space constantly bursting at the seams. Topsy-turvy.

If I were to make space for Baz, I'd build him a pillow fort or hide him in the closet with the glow in the dark stars. I'd keep him away from the mess. My head is the breeding ground for premature kid chaos.

I wouldn't want him to see that

Because he's Baz. Baz is _Baz_. He says 'pardon' and 'atrocious', and he dabs his mouth with carefully folded napkins. His spine is as straight as an iron rod. He wears jeans that fit. He drives Jags and smokes like he strutted straight out of a greaser movie. He has the kind of hair that makes you wonder what it would look like in the rain, in the wind, around your knuckles, splayed across mattresses, skin. He plays the violin. The bloody violin. And I think if he were a villain, he'd be a good one, the kind you'd end up liking more than the hero. 

He's all sharp angles and systematic. Clean. Polished to a mirror finish. There's this thing about him that's unapproachable. This foreign kind of far away.

And I remember sitting next to him on that cliff, and he was lying there, stretched out, staring, and I was afraid of touching him because maybe I'd get cut, maybe I'd bleed, or maybe he'd bite if I came too close. And then I'd bleed. Either way, I kept thinking about me getting hurt. And I fucking liked it.

I liked the thought of him being too sharp to touch. Because I'd have the balls to do it anyways.

Maybe one more hour of brain-leaking drowsiness, and I would've touched him - cut myself on his finger or his elbow or one of the red tape zones of his body, the dangerous places: cheeks, mouth, chest. Right above his heartbeat.

Maybe those places aren't sharp at all. Maybe he just makes them out to be. Like a warning ( _DON'T TOUCH!_ ).

I grab my left wrist, the pressure of my fingers making it drone. I've been doing that ever since I crashed into bed. I close my eyes, and I imagine that my fingers grow longer, smoother, more calloused.

He held me tight.

Maybe I hate myself for wanting him to do it again. Just a little longer so I can memorize the pressure.

I'm fucked. 

Because now I'm thinking about that bright surprise hiding in the right-hand corner of his mouth. And then I'm thinking about his mouth and the way it curls around my name. My whole entire name. Simon Snow Saunders. That mouth can say my name in a way that makes me want to punch him - and then straddle his waist to kiss-lick the impact zone.

I don't know when I started to think about him the way I think about love poems on bubble gum wrappers and car sex in the backseat. Stuff that happens in the spur of the moment.

Suddenly. Unprepared. Perfect accidents.

 

 

**Baz**

I can't get him out of my head.  
****

I'm still lying in bed, face stuffed into my pillows, hoping they'll swallow me whole if I just enforce it enough. The curtains are closed. The world is outside. He's outside. He should be. But he's stuck in here, too.

_Simon. Simon. Simon._

Outside. Inside. Everywhere.

I drove him home. He fell asleep with his head falling out of the window.

I kept hearing Fiona's voice in my head.

_"Get him out of your system."_

And I kept asking myself, _"How the fuck!?"_

I let the engine run in front of his house for twenty minutes because I couldn't stop wondering whether I'd get away with touching his hair. Or saying Snow twice in a row. Or kissing him. Really, really kissing him.

It was that last part that made me kick him awake, shove him out of the car and onto the sidewalk so fast I felt the whiplash. And he looked up at me from the concrete, eyes blue, just blue, and his mouth - nothing but this puffy smudge. Completely kissable. Tragically kissable.

I drove off with my foot jammed against the accelerator and his hair burning in the rearview mirror. He was the rest of the solar system, and I was going back to earth. I wanted to swerve the car around, drive back, roll the window down and pull him in, breathe straight out of his completely, tragically kissable mouth and -

I groan into my pillow, hit a fist into the mattress over and over again until I feel the springs scratch my skin.

I think he might like boys.

 

 

**Simon**

I pry my fingers out of my skin, watch the color leak into the indents.

"Baz," I say, and then I whisper it, and then I taste it, and then I say it a little louder, and then I almost shout it. And then I say it like I barely know how to. 

 

 

**Baz**

_Simon. Simon. Simon._

Outside. Inside. Everywhere.

 

 

**Simon**

I've always wondered whether liking blokes is worse than liking girls. For me. Because boys are familiar. I spent most of my life being around them without any afterthoughts, without any overthinking. When I was a kid, I didn't take a breather to wonder about their stomachs and thighs and the things between their pelvic bones. Boys were boys, and I was too busy dealing with girls and their neon-pink lurgies.   
****

I think liking boys is worse than liking girls. For me. Because I know how to talk to them. I know how to touch them. I know what they're thinking.

When I kissed Harvey Blythe in his parents' closet, it was traumatic - spit, clammy hands, the aftertaste of vomit - but it scratched at something I've never been able to reach. This sensory bundle tucked away, thick and electric and red. I never wanted that feeling to stop ever.

I think of it sometimes, and my skin goes hazy, like it's one blow away from evaporating, and then I'm all organ and breath, raw, blood vessels beating. I'm all ache.

 

 

**Baz**

_Get him out of your system._

I think I might've just made it worse. I'm a child. I'm picking at a scab. I'm poking a beast with a stick. I'm playing with matches.

 

 

**Simon**

"Baz."

 

 

**Baz**

"Simon."

 

✕

 

There are a lot of things I don't like about this house. It's too heavy, too dark. Like an empty animal burrow hidden away at the back of a forest. Sometimes, you'll stand in a hallway, and you'll feel this tugging thing, like a vacuum. When I was a child, Fiona would tell me that it was the mansion breathing. That it was alive and it would gobble me up if I wandered around the corridors one too many times. So growing up, I stayed away from any late night excursions. I know how to get from the foyer to the living room to the kitchen to the dining room to the library to my room. And back. That's it. That's all I need. The house is so big we don't even use the east wing or the third floor. Those are the black voids. (Mordelia might be the only one who knows what's up there.)

I don't think our home is very likable. There's nothing homey about it, nothing personal. Maybe because it's an ancient family heirloom. It's not supposed to be likable. Everything was systematically placed at its spot for a reason, and it shall never be moved, never touched or rearranged. Never, as in this house will stay like this until the world stops turning.

The portraits are the worst, all gold-framed and illuminated, hanging in perfect rows, the spaces between them always three inches, never more, never less. You're constantly being watched, oil-painted eyeballs of a family tree strained against your every move. It's like an infection in the dining room, a crowd of two-dimensional Grimms and Pitches hammered against every single wall, from top to bottom and bottom to top. And you're sitting at this long table staring down at a silver-rimmed dish, working your way through the rows of cutlery on either side - and you know they're watching. You know they're constantly judging you, looking down, craving to spit something condescending.

The dead are plastered to these walls forever. I used to think the paint was cracked because of their screams caught between the canvasses.

I'll never get to hear what my great-great-great-grandfather has to say about me sneaking boys into my room or my dad still smoking behind everybody's back or Fiona breaking Octavia's cellos. The paintings know all of our dirty little secrets. I wonder when I'll end up on these walls, watch the next generation build up their enigmas. And then the next and the one after that. Just secrets upon secrets until our bloodline runs dry.

Mordelia is staring at me from across the dining room table, this wicked red thing etched into the bottom of her face. She's the kind of person that smiles like she knows something you don't - something terrifying but amusing. I cock an eyebrow and stab my fork into the blueberry pie on my plate. And then I do it again. And again.

When my father eats with us, Daphne forces everybody to sit through a four-course meal. Sometimes, it's eight. ( _"It's the only time we have him all to ourselves, Basilton. It's only once a week! We need to enjoy it."_ ) But even if it were a one-course meal, it would feel like forever. When my father's at the table, everything stretches out into infinity and beyond. It's just taut small talk and clamped breathing and lots and lots of silence. But it's the loud kind of silence, the kind that blares your ears apart.

Everybody's afraid of making too much noise. You never know what mood my father might be in. Although, it's usually just the one: one wrong move, and he'll implode.

I glance across the table - heads low, carefully clinking cutlery, mouths shut, chewing - and I look at him. He's sitting at the head of the table, proud and looming. I've always thought that was a strange mixture. Proud and looming. Like your shadow outgrowing you on the sidewalk. 

He's staring dead ahead. At one of the portraits, maybe. Or maybe he's not staring at anything at all.

I look back down at my blueberry pie, the dark jam bubbling out of the checkered crust. Blood and stab wounds. I listen to Mordelia chew with her mouth open, wet sounds mixing with the clinking of metal on porcelain.

_Clank. Gulp. Chomp. Clink. Silence._

My knees jump beneath the table, fingers twitching. I'm ready for this to be over so I can catapult my way out of this void of a dinner. Dev wants me to come over to play pool in his basement. Which is a repulsive thought, because he still hasn't been able to get that spunk stain out of the cloth. I think he's not even trying. It's some sort of sick trophy to prove he's reached the pinnacle of his youth. He told his mother he spilled some yogurt. Dev's lactose intolerant. The wanker.

"How are your violin lessons going?"

I lift my head, still half in thought, that stupid spunk stain stuck in my imagination. Crusty white on green.

"Basilton," he says, sharp, a bullet skimming my skin. "I asked you a question."

I look at him. He's even farther away than before, table stretching into opposite directions, as if it's trying to crash right through the walls. I think it knows what's about to come. It's trying to keep us away from each other, make sure nobody gets hurt. By the time my eyes zero in on him, he's so far away I'll have to shout for him to hear me.

Everybody's quiet, barely breathing.

I swallow, and then I swallow again, and then I say, "Fine."

And he says, "Good."

And I say, "Yes."

And he says, "Octavia?"

 _Fuck_.

She lifts her head, half of her face hiding beneath her chopped fringe. Daphne combed her curls into a perfect little ponytail, a giant blue ribbon keeping it in place. It makes her eyes pop. Fine china blue. She looks like a limited edition porcelain doll, the kind that'll crack under too much pressure. Poke her one too many times, and she'll spill every secret until she runs out of words and ends up miming. It takes a lot for her to run out of words. A lot. She exhales syllabled air.

But not when he's around. He says blurting is improper.

Octavia cleans her fork with a napkin before placing it next to her plate. Carefully. Slowly. She does it twice before she shifts in her seat, back curling towards the ceiling, poised like the pinkie of a ballerina.

"Yes?" she asks.

"How are your cello lessons going?"

"Fine."

"Good."

"Yes."

Not even Octavia can come up with anything other than silence. I'm back to stabbing my blueberry pie.

"Arabella?" After another waft of quiet nothing. It's like he's going down a checklist:

_Things Fathers Are Obligated to Ask at the Dinner Table_

Arabella's sitting next to her twin sister, so much smaller, so much easier to be overlooked. She's wearing the same blue dress, the same big blue ribbon holding her curls up. But Octavia's in technicolor. Arabella is black and white and mute.

"Arabella?" my father pulls the tip of his fork along the porcelain rim of his plate. One long ugly screech.

Arabella keeps staring at her pie, fork untouched, plate shoved as far away from her as possible. I watch the way her arms twitch, as if she's weaving her fingers into knots under the table. I've never seen her eat more than a spoonful. Of anything.

"Arabella." A sharp demand. My father plops the fork next to his plate. It's a little louder than needed, a little rougher, too. He leans his arms on the edge of the table, fingers curled into limp fists. Hair platinum in the chandelier lights, violently slicked back, features yanked. He's all bone. No flesh.

I glance over at Daphne. Her eyes are stapled against Arabella - just hoping for anything.

"Hm," Arabella mumbles.

"It's 'yes, father', not gibberish, Arabella," he says. "And please, do sit straight. You are slouching, child."

Fiona rolls her eyes from where she's staring down at her lap. I can hear her fingers dribble across her phone, the display making her face glow electric blue. Arabella grumbles something under her breath before she worms her way up against the dark leather of her chair. She's still slouching, but my father doesn't seem to be in the mood for caring.

"Your mother has told me you haven't been practicing enough. Practice, Arabella. Do you understand? Practice. Discipline. You will not get very far with a lack of discipline." He makes it sound like a survival skill.

Practice, discipline, drill, drill, drill.

( _"There is nothing worse in this world than a slacker, Basilton. A deadbeat. A failure. If you do your best at everything you do - there is no other direction you can go but up. Remember that, boy. Practice, discipline, drill, drill, drill."_ )

"No more outdoor activities for a week. I want you to be in top shape for the - " He whirls his hands up, trying to grab words and oxygen.

"Clarinet," Daphne presses out. She's staring at her plate. She hasn't even touched her pie.

" _Clarinet_ ," he says, pointing a finger at Arabella, his skin pale, knuckles bulging, pink-ish. "Do you understand?" The rest of his hand tenses. I know he's trying to keep it from taking action.

My breath hitches. Just one short twitch of my lungs. I try to shake off a memory of a pale hand soaring towards my cheek.

Knuckles bulging, pink-ish.

I jerk in my seat, try to make my head as quiet as possible. I stare at Arabella until the world is nothing but slouching shoulders and drooping blue ribbons and tiny mouths that never speaks.

She grumbles something incoherent.

"Excuse me?" He tilts his head. Head tilting is never a good sign.

"Yeah…"

"Yes, _father_." He leans forward. His eyes flick to Daphne for a split-second. Then they're back on Arabella. I can hear Daphne nick at her fingernails, this little click-clack coming from beneath the table. When Daphne gets nervous, she picks at her nails until there's nothing left. As a child, I'd find little clips of them on tables and carpets, prick my skin on sharp-edged half moons. Sometimes, I'd collect them in my pockets. Maybe she'd want them back when she felt better. But she never did. I started to hide my hands behind my back because I was afraid she'd look for someone else's fingernails to pull at if she didn't have any more of her own.

It's been getting worse. Her fingernails are so short there's nothing left to pick at.

"Yes," Arabella says. I breathe out. Shaky. "Yes, father," she says.

He leans back in his seat, tension in his shoulders. The leather of his chair crunches. An ugly sound. I know he's not done. If he finds one thing that gets on his nerves, he will purposefully find another. And another. And another. Until Daphne ushers him out and screams at him in the kitchen.

Welcome to Grimm-Pitch Family Night. Dysfunction extravaganza.

"Mordelia," he starts.

I try my best not to groan.

Mordelia stops psycho-smiling at me from across the table. She snaps her head towards our father, shrinking just the tiniest bit.

"I have decided." He stops, takes a short breath. Theatrical. Daphne is still picking at her fingernails. "I have decided a girl like you is not suited for - _football_." He makes it sound like some barbaric activity. _Football_. Like _taxidermy_.

Mordelia drops her fork. It clatters to the ground. Nobody moves. I watch her cheeks go from rosy to nuclear.

Here we go. 

"Malcolm, I - " Daphne starts, but she goes quiet when his hand snaps into the air.

"Mordelia, the injuries you've sustained in the past semester alone are preposterous. Fractured kneecap. Twisted ankles. You've undergone two operations, dear. Serious damage. Very serious. Especially, for a little girl. Fragile as you are," he says.

Fiona snorts out a laugh. Mordelia snaps for air.

"Not little," she says, eyes going feline. Besides Fiona, Mordelia isn't afraid of speaking her mind in front of our father. "I'm not. Don't want to! I'm not going to stop playing football."

"Sweetheart," he starts, honeyed. "It is not proper for a girl like you to roll around in the dirt. The bruises. Yes, the bruises are yet another reason for you to stop."

"I don't want to!" Mordelia slams a fist against the table. Fiona jerks up in her seat. Tybalt starts crying.

"Contain yourself, Mordelia," he says, far too quiet to be considered calm.

She slams another fist on the table, chest throbbing, growing up and out.

"This is not up for discussion."

"You can't just - "

"I can, darling, and I will. I'd like to continue eating dessert now, so please, if you would just calm down and -"

"No. No! I'm not! I don't want to! I don't want, I don't want, I don't want!" She stands up in her chair, everything about her turning blotchy, the color of sweat-drenched cheeks, pink-red, angry. She starts trampling.

Fiona looks like she might walk out any second now.

"No!" Mordelia shouts. And then she shouts again. And Tybalt's sobs are turning into blubbers, spit dribbling across his chubby chin. Arabella's oozing down her seat, the top of her head barely above the edge of the table, but Octavia's hand around her shoulder is keeping her from disappearing. Everything's thumping hot.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

"Mordelia, sit down," Daphne says, this hiss of breath and desperation. It's like I can hear her thoughts stumbling through her head:

_Don't make him angry, Mordelia. Please, don't make him angry._

"Mordelia, listen to your mother." My father is back to eating his blueberry pie, stabbing big fat chunky pieces. He makes it look like something gruesome. Like he's dissecting a dead animal, red meat.

"I want to play - I want, want, want football! You can't! You can't!" She tramples faster, the hem of her pink dress fluttering up and down. I can see the bruises on her knees and shins, the scrapes. She's been playing forward for a year. She's ruthless on the field. She's good. I was good, too. Until I sat at the dinner table one evening, and my father decided it was no longer a decent sport. He made me play lacrosse instead - because he played it in school, and it made him a man - made sure I was only ever stuck on the benches so I wouldn't bruise too much.

You're not presentable when you're bruised. You need to be seamless if he wants you to join him at functions, galas, any social gatherings with a big enough crowd. That's just the way things work. You need to look like nothing has touched you - and nothing will touch you ever.

I was seven and a half when he gave me my first tailored suit. Mordelia's almost eight.

"What about tennis, sweetheart? Or badminton. Something a little more -" He stops. He loves theatrical pauses, these little twitches in time that make you hold your breath. He keeps you on the tips of your toes. Always. "Something a little more suitable. All the Addington girls play tennis. Doing very well, those girls. Very well. They enjoy it. Why wouldn't you?"

And now he's comparing us to the neighbours. It isn't beneath him. That's one of his favorite cards to play. It's the neighbors and the slope of your back.

"Back straight, Basilton," he snaps.

Exactly.

I don't bother moving. The whole entire table is falling apart, and he's just looking for more to pick on.

Mordelia's still shouting, eyes bulging out of her pink skull, blubbering. Arabella has disappeared beneath the table, and I can feel her little fingers tugging at my socks. I let her.

"Mordelia, please." Daphne stands up, her fingers woven into a thick cluster of skin. But she quickly sits back down, like leaving her seat had been a terrible accident.

"Listen to your mother." My father scratches his plate clean with the side of his fork, systematic, from top to bottom, then from left to right, then from right to left, then from bottom to top. His plate looks like a blue streaked chessboard. His hands are twitching, shaking, quaking. My right cheek starts to throb. 

I can feel the back of his hand on my skin. 

"No tennis!" she yells, and the tendons in her neck are bursting one by one. "I don't like tennis! You can't! I like football! I want -"

My father slams both of his hands onto the table, chair skidding back, and he opens his mouth. All I can hear is a boom.

"Shut your sodding mouth!" Red. Blaring. He's all tension, coiled muscles.

The room shudders. It's like we've all been hit by an electric slap. There's a tight pressure clinging to my left ankle - Arabella's fingers clutching at me. 

"Malcolm." Daphne shoves her seat back so fast it almost topples over. She's ripped her hands apart, balled little things pressed tight against either side of her rose patterned skirt. The petals look like tiny organs. Beating.

I watch her jaw strain, teeth grinding. I imagine I can hear it - _crrrcccch_ \- and it makes my spine ache.

"May I talk to you in the kitchen?" she says so quietly I can barely hear her. She's solid. Ready for some screaming.

My father straightens his back, slow, mechanical, until he's in the sky looking down on all of us. He stands up in that 'I have all the time in the world' kind of way. He folds his napkin into a square and slaps it onto his sticky plate. Daphne has her eyes hammered against his every move as he walks out of the room. Proud and looming. Not ever looking back.

She rushes after him. And then the shouting in the kitchen starts. 

Mordelia darts out of the room. I can hear her throw things onto the floor on her way to wherever. Pots and vases, anything that will make enough noise, her tiny feet pounding against everything she can reach.

I let my hand fall from my lap, and Arabella's little fingers curl into my palm. I curl my hand around her's until our skins start to sweat.

I don't think I'm in the mood to go play pool on a spunk-stained pool table. I don't think I'm in the mood for anything. I don't think anybody is. 

Tybalt hiccups a blubber before he flops his face into his bowl of applesauce.

"Bloody hell…" Fiona says just in time to overplay the swears my father is throwing around in the kitchen. "All right, kiddos." She claps her hands like Mary Poppins, and she shuffles over to Tybalt and lifts him out of his high chair. His face is dripping applesauce, but he's stopped crying. Which is a blessing. 

Fiona holds the baby as far away from her as possible, like some inanimate object she doesn't know what to do with.

"Fetch your plates," she mumbles, scrunching her face when Tybalt bats his hands against his cheeks and smears the sauce all over her arms. "We're heading to my room. Telly dinner, yeah? How's that sound?"

It takes us a while to even understand what she's saying, to nod, to take our plates and follow her up the stairs, the screaming watering down to mumbling once we're sitting on the floor in her soundproof room. Fiona doesn't like kids. Especially the Grimm kids. But she can be good with them if she wants to. She's holding Tybalt, rocking him up and down, awkwardly patting his back like she's trying to imitate the commercial mums on TV. (It's like when she makes pancakes, and she just throws together whatever she thinks belongs into a pancake batter.) Arabella's head is on Fiona's lap, and I watch her pull the ribbon out of my sister's hair. Her curls spill over Fiona's thighs as she rakes her fingers through them in mechanical motions. Octavia's lying on the floor quietly playing with her sister's toes, counting them, mumbling numbers under her breath.

I don't think anybody's watching The Breakfast Club. We're just trying to ignore the shudders coming from one floor beneath. It's like trying to sleep through a thunderstorm. I've slept through more thunderstorms than I can count. It's an acquired skill.

Halfway through the movie, Vera knocks at the door to the fetch the kids and put them to sleep. Fiona looks relieved as she hands her the baby. Vera curls him against her chest, and she's so small, a child holding a smaller child, and she lulls him to sleep with a French lullaby. Something about midnights and moons and angels eating stars.

 

✕

 

The house is quiet by the time I reach my room. Tired quiet. Run dry. 

I imagine Daphne standing by a window in the library, shaking and angry, staring at her reflection between the curtains. I imagine my father pacing in his office, hands tugging his hair back until his forehead goes blotchy. I imagine I can hear the click-clack of his shoes hitting the polished wooden decks. I imagine Arabella curled up in her sister's bed, like a lost kitten. I imagine Vera watching over Tybalt in the nursery, the stars of the mobile above his crib shooting through the atmosphere in their own little orbits. I imagine Fiona taking a swig out of the bottle of rum she has stowed away under her bed, The Breakfast Club running again just so she has something alive in the background.

I imagine Mordelia cooped up in a tight space, hidden away, picking at her fingernails like her mother.

I like imagining. It makes me feel like I know more than I actually do. There's comfort in imagining. Like I know what's going on behind these thick walls, like I can see through them and understand. But I don't. Not really. For a while, it's nice denying it, though. For a while, I know everybody's secrets.

I lean my back against my door and shove it closed. I'm glad everything in my room is dark. It makes disappearing easier.

"If you snore, I'll eat you." Small. Shaky. Chopped off by sobs. It's coming from my closet.

I jerk against the door, slam my head on wood. I stare at the crack between the two winged doors of my closet. A shred of pink is stuck in the gap.

I stumble through the dark, not bothering with turning on the lights, and I reach the closet, one hand ready to rip it open.

But I don't. I wait. I can hear her breathe, wet and sticky. I wonder how long she's been crying.

"Mordelia, you should be in bed," I say.

"I'm sleeping here." It sounds like she's mumbling the words into something soft. Her hands, maybe. Or my clothes.

I groan.

"If you get your snot on my things, I will murder you." I kick the tip of my foot against the doors. Mordelia sniffles. One loud, sloshy huff.

"Too late," she says. But it's not defiant. It's not her usual 'I did it anyway, and it's not my problem' attitude. It's lost and crumbly and in need of something to hold it together.

I feel the space between my eyebrows tense so much it hurts. I sigh.

"Scoot," I mumble, and I open the closet doors to crawl in. I feel ten again, hiding in any small space I'll fit in - inside closets, under beds, behind curtains - pulling my body into itself, rocking back and forth, hoping time will stop if I just want it bad enough. 

Mordelia is crumpled against the back of the closet, a mountain of my sweaters hiding her from plain sight. I close the doors as best I as I can. It's pitch-black and stuffy, and we're sitting in a burrow lined with lemon zest laundry detergent.

I poke at the bundle of sweaters with my foot. It twitches and whines. I like Mordelia more when she's angry. Because I know how long it'll take her to calm down. She'll just need some venting, some kicking and screaming, and then she'll be back to scheming total world domination in the wine cellar.

But like this - I don't know what to do with her. I don't even know where to start.

"You can't sleep here," I say. Which is terrible, but it's something, and I think that might be okay.

Mordelia grunts out gibberish. I keep jabbing her with my foot in hopes she'll press out some actual English.

My eyes have adjusted to the dark. I can see her hands peek out from under my favourite maroon cardigan. I take one finger and hold it. She rips it back, but I make sure to hold it even tighter, so tight I'm afraid I might snap the bones. It's so fragile, the anatomical counterpart of a quiver.

And then she lets me. She lets me hold her little finger.

We sit in the dark like this until her crying tones down to something bearable. I keep brushing my thumb against her knuckle, from top to bottom, then from left to right, then from right to left, then from bottom to top.

"You know…" I breathe. I'm afraid I'll make her cry if I speak too loud. "It gets easier."

Mordelia shifts, her finger squirming in between mine like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

"What?" she says.

"Enduring." I know it's a big word. And I know she knows what it means.

"But that's not a nice thing," she says.

"I know it's not a nice thing." _It's not supposed to be a nice thing._ "That's just the way things are."

"Why?" She pulls a sweater off her face. I can see her eyes flash wet in the dark.

"Because," I say.

"Just because?"

"Just because."

Just because there are certain ways this family is built. And we are built for this. For enduring. For taking hits and being told what to do. 

For a moment, I wonder what this family would've been like if my mother had never left.

 _Died_ , I remind myself. _Died. You need to make it more real. No more what ifs._

"I hate him," she says. "I hate him."

I hold her finger tighter. She worms her whole hand into my palm, and I hold it as tight as I possibly can.

"Don't be ridiculous," I say. Because that's all I have.

"You hate him, too," she says, and she presses her fingernails into my skin until it hurts.

_You hate him, too._

I've never dared to think about it. You can't hate family. You can't hate the people who raised you, who put a roof over your head and fed you. You can't hate them because you'll never get anywhere without them. And everybody needs to get somewhere, to be somebody.

You can't hate family. You'll be nothing otherwise. I can't risk being nothing.

"I don't," I say. _I can't afford to._

"Liar," she says. I let her hand go. But it feels like I've lost something important, so I reach for her and take her hand back, hold her tight again. It feels like I need it more than she does. To hold onto something warm and beating. I need something familiar.

"He hates us, too." And she doesn't sound like a child venting its anger on words. There's nothing desperate in the way she says it, nothing immature. She sounds so old, like she's aware of something I can't even understand.

"Us?" It's so quiet I can only hear it in my head.

"All of us," she whispers. "Family."

I swallow, but the chunk in my throat stays.

"That's a horrible thing to say, Mordelia."

"But it's the truth. Truth's never nice," she whispers. Her hand is shaking in mine. Or maybe it's my hand shaking around hers. "What if we're just too hard to like? So everybody hates us. So he hates us. Because we're too hard to like."

I feel my head go numb. These are words coming out of a child's mouth. This is what she has locked up inside. I wish I could crack her head open and dig out all of those bad things, make sure to fill the holes with football and pink dresses and Daphne's lemon cakes, things children her age should be thinking about. Simple things. Happy things.

I don't know what to say anymore. It's embarrassing. Big brothers are always supposed to know what to say. They're supposed to make their little sisters feel better. They're supposed to stand between them and all the bad things in the world. Like flood walls. Like forts. I've been doing a shit job at that. I don't remember the last time we talked without at least one of us shouting. I don't even remember the last time I held her hand like this. Tight and comforting and _I'm here._

"What if I'm too hard to like? What if nobody will ever like me? Because they don't, Baz. Nobody does. Nobody ever does. 'Cause - because I'm too hard to like. Too hard." She's stumbling over her words, and I can hear how thick they are. I hate it. I want to clutch her against my chest and hold her and fly her to the moon, build her a home made out of white dust and stars. Keep her as far away from here as possible.

"Maybe you are," I say. "I know I am. And I know that maybe it's good to be too hard to like. Because - " I crawl a little closer. She's squeezed into the corner, knees tucked against her chest, her little finger tight in my grip. I breathe. She breathes. Two lungs caught up in the same beat. "Because maybe it shows you how far people are willing to go to love you completely. And, I mean, they'll look at you and see you and everything you're made out of. And not only the good things but also the bad things. The really, really bad things, awful things. The things that make you too hard to be liked. But that's okay. Because they won't mind. Because they know those bad things are not all of you. Not everything. Do you understand? Not everything." I find her other hand in the dark, and I hold onto her like a live wire. "I like you. You've got me, all right? You've got me. And you've got this family. I promise. I promise, Mordelia. I promise."

And I close my eyes, and she crawls closer, curls into my chest. I imagine I fly her to the moon and build her a home made out of white dust and stars.

I like imagining. Because there's nothing I can't imagine.

 

 

**Simon**

I can't go a day without the Grimm's garden. I can't go a day without Mrs. Grimm's lemon cakes and Vera's sandwiches. And Baz playing his violin. Sometimes, I'll sit right beneath the row of windows on the second floor facing the lake, and I'll listen to him send hymns to the stars. Hopelessly.   
****

Until he pokes his head out and tells me to breathe somewhere else, and I'll flip him off, and he'll call me disgusting, and then he'll keep playing, and I'll pretend he's doing it just for me. And I'll laugh. Or I'll fall asleep. Or I'll pretend to fall asleep. Because he'll lean out of the window and stare at me. I'll crack my eyes open just the tiniest bit - I always hope he can't tell from all the way up there - and I'll watch him watch me, chin leaning on his folded arms, hair hanging in the breeze like wind chimes. I wish I could tell him to never stop. But that's a stupid thing to say. It's a stupid thing to think. And if I were to tell him, I'm sure my mouth would turn it into something horrible, wheezing or gibberish, and he'd roll his eyes and cock both of his eyebrows and sneer and scoff and shoot green fireballs out of his mouth. And I'd just end up punching him. That's all I ever want to do. Except, now I want to do more. I want to mend him after I hurt him. I want to apologize and kiss the bruises better, blow the pain away the way mums do. I want to say nice things to him. And I want him to say nice things back.

Sometimes, he comes out to the terrace without sandwiches, and he sits on the steps and watches me shovel through the flower path. He talks to me. Sometimes, I talk back. But he never stays long enough to hear the nice things I've built in my head. It just takes so long, the structuring, the rearranging, the finding better words and the polishing them to something close to perfect. I have so many nice things to say. I just never know how to make them come out right.

 

✕

 

The house has been clean for a week now. All of it. And not just the kitchen. I don't know why it makes my chest flare up angry. I'm scared of maybe reading things wrong, of thinking that maybe this is some sort of signal. I don't know what he's trying to prove. That he can care for more than just work? That he can care?

Or maybe I'm interpreting things the wrong way - because I always do - and maybe he just wants to have a clean house to come home to. Which is a sad thought, because he only comes home three times a week, and he never stays long enough for him to be allowed to call this place home. He sleeps at the precinct a lot, or he'll stay at Alfie's in Southampton, his partner. Ever since Alfie divorced his wife, he's turned the flat into a bachelor pad, with a pool table and a bar and everything. The last time my father brought me there, I was twelve. It was during one of their biggest cold cases in all of Southampton and Portsmouth. And he wanted me near, so he pulled me out of school for a month and barricaded me in Alfie's apartment. I remember living in the middle ofpizza boxes and beer cans and black-and-white copies of case files splayed across blotchy table tops. I didn't mind the mess. I think I liked it. I remember the pictures of dead people and mugshots of criminals pinned to a bulletin board in Alfie's bedroom. A shrine. I skimmed my fingers along the clues, the whole world turning black-and-white, rain drenched coats, cigarette smoke and jazz music in an ink-oiled city. I was in my very own detective movie. 

And I stood there staring at that bulletin board for hours - wondering whether my father had ever used his gun on duty. Or if he'd ever watched somebody die. 

Mitali came to fetch me after I hadn't been in school for weeks. She just kicked down the apartment door, fuming like a six-headed dragon, and the whole world caught fire. I remember sitting strapped in the backseat of the Bunce's family van with a picture of a severed arm stuffed into the back pocket of my trousers. Mitali drove me all the way back to Brockenhurst with her foot jammed against the accelerator, zooming over the speed limit and shouting 'he's irresponsible, irresponsible, irresponsible' over and over again, until the words were stuck in my head for hours. My father came in the middle of the night to pick me up from the Bunces, but Mitali wouldn't let him. She told me to stay in Penny's room, and I climbed out of the window and onto the ledge, watched her scream at my father in the driveway. I'd never seen her so angry. 

Last year, Penny told me her mum had almost called Child Protective Services that night. But they would've taken me far, far away so nobody would've been able to reach me. So she didn't. And she never tried ever again. I'm happy she didn't. This is a million times better than the foster system. And Mitali can get dramatic at times. It's her thing. Being collected and rational is just a disguise.

_"He's irresponsible, irresponsible, irresponsible."_

I have Mitali's voice stuck in my head as I rummage through the fridge. It's only half empty today, which is a hundred percent more than usual. I'm genuinely happy stacking my arms with yogurt containers and frozen ready meals.

He cleaned the house and stocked the fridge. I'm too busy stuffing food into my mouth to wonder why. It's always _why_. I drink milk straight out of the carton so I don't have to clean up anything. I'm afraid of getting something dirty. Because maybe now he's done with cleaning forever, and the house will start decaying all over again. I make sure not to leave a mess. I even wipe away the dirt on the kitchen tiles, residues of the Grimm's garden that were stuck to my sneakers.

I stare at the kitchen for a while, the cleanliness of it, the bleached whiteness like American teen teeth, the smell of sharp lemon wafting from the countertops. I shuffle through the rest of the house. There's nothing lying around on the floor, no empty takeout boxes or ripped out magazine pages, no sticky stains. I wonder if this is what a house would look like with a mother. Always clean, always orderly. I imagine coming home to warm meals and trays of chocolate chip cookies, the smell of butter everywhere. Because that's what mums do in laundry detergent commercials and 90's picture books. They cook and clean and love you so much you hate it. I've always thought it must be kind of nice having that, this heart shaped woman in an apron telling you to eat your greens with a spatula in her hand. I would've eaten my greens for her. I would've cleaned my room and studied. I would've secretly eaten the chocolates I'd given her on mother's day.

But I don't know what mothers are really like. Maybe actual mums are like Mitali, multitasking enthusiasts, constantly working and burning food in the pan because they're busy trying to break up a fight between four kids at once. Or maybe they're more like Agatha's mum, perfect, poised, going from function to function and buying their daughters pretty things they don't need. Or maybe they're like Mrs. Grimm, gentle and haunted.

I walk past my father's office, and I wonder what kind of mother Lucy Finch is. Her kids are young. On the pictures I found, they looked like five or seven. Both blonde. Both blue eyed. A diluted kind of blue, like Lucy's color hadn't been able to stay absolute when it was split in two.

I wonder what she's doing right now. It's Sunday evening over here, so it must be Sunday morning over there. I picture her with black framed glasses propped up on her head, a pen keeping her hair in a bun. And she's standing in front of a stove making her family porridge, while scribbling down ideas for stories. I picture her writing a lot. I picture her writing while grocery shopping or taking walks by the Sacramento River, making up sentences in her head and repeating them over and over again until she finds something to write them down on. I bet she makes up new bedtime stories every night she puts her kids to sleep.

I bet if she'd stayed, I'd be better with words.

I stare at my father's office door until my eyes spasm. I know her books are somewhere in there. He wouldn't just throw them out. He wouldn't. He couldn't. I'm sure.

I know what I'm about to do is bad. It's stupid and childish, and before I know it, I'm darting up to the bathroom to get Penny's bobby pins, and then I'm back at the office door, picking the lock. It takes me a while to get it open. My hands won't stop shaking. I don't know if it's because of the excitement. Maybe I'm just nervous.

His office is as clean as everything else in this house. Maybe even cleaner. The green window shades are all pulled down, the last bits of the sun crawling in and dipping the room into a sickly color. Everything looks like it's never been touched before, and I half expect his desk to be covered by a film of dust. But it's rubbed clean, blank, a yellow notepad neatly placed next to his laptop and a mason jar of pens.

I don't let the fact about me having broken into my father's office sink in. I just move so fast my thoughts stay quiet. I start ripping open the closet and the old travel trunk in the corner (the furniture the last family left here, back when this must've been a guest room) but I find nothing but black binders and log books. There's this childish itch in me that wants to take a peek at the bad things inside, the gory truths, but I rip my hands back before I let it get that far. I rummage through the drawers of his desk, fingers skimming through labeled files and ripped opened pencil packagings. Nothing.

I stare at the bottom drawer, the only one with a keyhole in it, clunky and round. I could get it open in seconds. I tug at the knob of the drawer, pretend to be shocked when I realize it's locked. Of course it's locked.

"Fuck." I jab a fist against the office chair, and it creaks, the impact hurling it against the closet. Pang.

I shouldn't open it. I know I shouldn't open it. I'll make myself crazy if I do. An unhealthy kind of crazy.

"You don't need it," I breathe. "You don't need it. You don't need it. You don't."

I repeat the words until I hear nothing but letters that don't make sense.

_I don't need it. I don't need it._

_Fuck this. All of this. Fuck her._

I leave the room and realize I can't lock the door without a key. At least, he'll know I didn't open the drawer.

 

 

**Baz**

Everyone acts like nothing happened, like that night was just some dirty blotch in time that was wiped away. Gone for good. 

That's how it works around here. Most of the time, I think it's a brilliant solution. Complete avoidance. Complete ignorance. What better way to win at life than to cheat your way through it?

But Fiona's still avoiding me, and Mordelia has never been this quiet before. She's so careful, tiptoeing and whispering, instead of trampling the whole house down the way she usually does. Not a single tantrum for an entire week. It's a new record. I should be thankful. But I'd rather have her back to plotting genocides instead of sulking in my closet. (She opts for that when the wine cellar gets too cold.)

Daphne doesn't seem to notice. I think she's too busy picking at her fingernails and getting the kids ready for the new school year. It's good she has something to keep her out of this house - and away from him. He's been a viper lately. And we're nothing but rat meat. And we're never enough.

I'm standing by the grand piano in the library, my violin tucked beneath my chin, bow gliding faster and faster in a reckless rhythm. I've been playing my fingers raw. They're aching, bubbling purple. I've been pressing too hard. That's never a good sign. When I was a child, I vented my anger on the violin. I played so hard my fingers burst on the strings. My hands were wrapped in bandages for weeks because I'd take them off and play anyways.

The image of little boy fingers and blood flashes through my head. I rip the bow from the strings. I breathe in, breathe out, try to mute the need to keep playing, this desperate thing clawing at the other side of my skin. Inside. Violent.

I lay my violin in its case. I lock it and kick it under the piano. I'm a child thinking if I can't see it, it's not there. I don't want to fall into old patterns. Bad habits. My father used to say I was a tiny collection of giant indiscretions.

"Why'd you stop?" someone calls from the garden.

My chest thumps. Once. Twice. Then a hundred times at super speed.

"Baz?"

Simon.

I thought he fell asleep after I started playing Brahms. He always falls asleep when I play Brahms. Without fault. It's like a switch. Two minutes in, and he starts snoring like an ogre. Sometimes, it gets so loud I'm ready to throw something at him. Like a book. Or my mother's grand piano. But then I reach the window, and he's lying in a pond of petunias like a fucking fairy. And he's snoring and drooling and wonderful. And I end up staring at him instead.

I climb up the window, swing my legs over the ledge, feet dangling.

He's standing below, peeking up at me through his curls. Blue. And breathing. And stupidly brave.

"You get paid to work, not stand around," I say. Because it's easier to say something sharp. I'm quick on my feet when it comes to being terrible.

Simon rolls his eyes. He flaps his arms and points a shovel at me.

"I am working!" he says.

"Every time I look out of a window, you're sleeping."

"Bad timing." He grins. Impish. "Is that a ponytail?" He grins even wider.

My hands snap to my head. I rip Octavia's scrunchie off, and my hair falls into my face.

"Gets in the way when I play," I mumble.

Simon's still smiling. Like a kid on Christmas. Or a kid - period. He looks ten times younger when he flashes his teeth.

"I bet you can do magical stuff with that hair," he says. "Like a mohawk. I wish I could. Super wicked." He lifts his hands up to his head, ruffles them through his curls and slicks them up in the middle. But his hair just flops back down, and he ends up mushing his fingers through it. I wonder what it would feel like. My hands in his curls. I swear this kid is killing me.

"Have you thought about that?" he asks. "Mohawk? Or, like - What about a mullet?"

I cock an eyebrow. I've been doing that a lot lately. I like the way he stares at it. I think he really, really hates it. It's perfect.

"Go be terrible somewhere else," I say. " _Snow_."

"Don't call me that. Ever. Don't call me that." 

I watch the way his cheeks go blotchy and red. Ripe. Ready for teeth to sink in. I want to make him angrier. I want him to burn. And then I want to bite his cheeks.

"You work for me. I can call you whatever I like."

He kicks a foot against the bricks below. Angrier. 

There's nothing more satisfying. I smile, not enough for my teeth to show, but enough to feel the warmth. I swing my legs back, and I'm about to shut the windows when something tiny and dark comes flying in. I barely manage to dodge it, and I watch it skid across the polished floor of the library, twirling in tight circles. A rock. A pebble.

"Are you mad?" I shout, and I'm back to shoving my head out of the window.

"A little." He makes it sound like a question. "What's that thing you've been playing lately?"

"Is this how you keep a conversation going? Do you just throw things at people in hopes they'll reciprocate?"

"Maybe." There's this ease to it. Like he's embracing the fact that he should've been born a neanderthal. "Are you just a shithead to people in hopes they won't have the balls to be shitheads back?"

"Maybe." I try to make it sound just as easy. 

He juts his bottom lip out and nods, eyes flicking down. And before I know it, he's lifting the hem of his shirt up and using it to wipe the sweat off his face. I try not to stare at his stomach. I try really, really hard. But then I realize he has a mole right next to his belly button, and I know I wasn't trying that hard. I wasn't even close to trying.

I'm terrible.

"It's not a 'thing'. It's Jean Sibelius," I say, once he pulls his shirt back down, crumply and dirt-stained. "Violin Concerto in D minor."

Simon snorts and says, "It's weird."

"It's a masterpiece."

"Whatever. I like it." He smiles. Again. He's aging backwards at light speed. I wonder what his smiles taste like. "I like the way you play it," he says. And I die. Just a little.

"Are you hungry?" The question stumbles out of my mouth before I have time to save it from the fall. Maybe because I know it's the only thing that will keep him with me a little longer.

I'm terrible. 

"Vera just brought out sandwiches," he says, eyebrows scrunching.

"That was an hour ago."

"No, that was - How do you know?"

"Are you hungry or not?"

"Are you spying on me?"

"Of course, Simon. Because I have nothing better to do than watch the downfall of humanity stumble over shovels. They're giant shovels. How on earth can you miss giant bloody shovels?"

"Sod off."

"Are you hungry?" I'm back to cocking my eyebrow. Simon stares at it like he's trying to laser it away with sheer willpower. He puffs up.

"Fine," he grumbles, chest deflating. "Yes. Still. Always. Fuck you."

"Meet me at the terrace." I smile. With my teeth.

He drops his shovel.

 

 

**Simon**

I wonder if smiles can kill you. Make your heart swell until it splatters inside of your chest. Pang. Pink oozing everywhere. Liquid heartbeats.  
****

Because fuck him and that stupid mouth of his. And while some random cosmic power's at it, might as well fuck his hair, too. It's a terrible kind of perfect. Baz with a ponytail…a man bun…a man ponytail. Baz with a man bun ponytail playing the violin.

I wonder if boys with man bun ponytails can kill you, too.

Baz brings out blueberry scones. I tell him I like sour cherry scones better, and I tell him to remember that until the end of time. He tells me to stop talking with my mouth open.

I imagine he stores that piece of information in a treasure chest and burries it in the back of his brain:

_Simon likes sour cherry scones._

We sit on the terrace stairs leading down to the garden until the sun gets sleepy. Baz is stretched out over the last few steps, perched up on his elbows, his white T-shirt straining against his chest. I try not to stare at his collar bone, burnished and arched, like someone sculpted him with a razor blade.

I'm happy it's just me working on the garden this afternoon, so nobody's there to tell me I'm slacking. Or to tell me I'm unapologetically staring. Ebb's got the lurgy, and Nicky's trying to take care of her. Sort of. He called me twice to ask how to make soup. I gave the phone to Vera because all I could tell him was that it's technically just hot salted water.

The sun is crawling into the forest around the lake by the time I finish all the scones. I listen to Baz tell me stories about France. His family flies to the Pyrenees every winter. He says it's like the Alps but cozier. I don't know what he means by cozier - they're both giant mountains of snow - but I nod anyways. The farthest I've ever been is Northern Ireland for a school trip. We camped out in the middle of nowhere and studied the Irish forest biotope while getting high with the park ranger. We didn't even get to see the Giant's Causeway or Dunluce Castle. Baz has seen both twice. He's been everywhere. He knows what the Great Wall of China looks like from up close.

I like listening to him talk. But only once he's warmed up to someone listening. When his guard tumbles, all his sharp angles blur, smooth out. He molds into something mellow, like a blanket you can wrap around yourself, something that'll shelter you, keep you safe from all the bad things. He can't hurt me like this. He can't cut me. He's just gentle and faint - and good with words. He finds the right ones, the perfect ones, and he weaves them together, and it's this never-ending string of lovely little syllables. I catch myself wanting to grab everything he has to say straight out of the air and hide it all in my chest. Right next to where I keep my secrets and wishes.

 

**Baz**

I brought out the scones Vera baked. Blueberry. Simon said he likes sour cherry scones better. I remind myself to tell Vera. I remind myself to tell Daphne, too. Maybe I'll tell the whole entire world. Everybody needs to know.

Simon Snow Saunders likes sour cherry scones.

I wonder what else he likes. I want to know it all. I want to live inside of his head. His thick-skulled, curly-haired mess of a head.

 

 

**Simon**

I remember him telling me it was just proper English. I think it's magic. All of his words are magic. And when he looks at me and says my name, it's like he's casting a spell.

I'd do anything for him to say it again and again and again.

 

 

**Baz**

When I'm with Simon, it's like I'm up on the moon, like I'm so far away from earth and everything in it. All the mess and the things that are wrong down below. When I'm with Simon, I'm so close to the stars I can almost touch them.  
****

He's a space shuttle. A rocketman.

_Blast me away._

 

 

**Simon**

Baz.  
****

 

**Baz**

Simon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who was sick and decided to go full snowbaz-trash! I honestly hate having colds, but my family gave me some space, and I got the chance to write all day, and I was like 'YES I'LL GET TO UPDATE THIS SHIT ON CHRISTMAS!!!' I'm such trash...my priorities are all messed up...Anywwhoohaaa I'm so happy I get to update this for you guys!!! (I hated the thought of making you wait until January)  
> Yay to more dysfunctional family drama and two dudes being gross! (ALSO, BAZ WITH A MAN BUN PONYTAIL THINGY ANd Simon not really knowing the difference between a bun and a ponytail)  
> Frohe Weihnachten allerseits! Super big hugs and kisses from Germany! May you all have the most magical Christmas <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shitty vegetable joke before you proceed to read this angsty chapter: 
> 
> Why did the carrot get embarrassed?
> 
> 'Cause it saw the chick pea!
> 
> harharhar... (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Simon**

I watch Penny's hair lose its color in the fluorescent lights, like clothing that's been washed one too many times. She's sitting in a laundry cart, legs dangling over the edge, her feet thrusting her from the walls to the washing machines, to the dryers and back. I watch the wheels of the cart turn beneath her, going dizzy, out of orbit. They've been squeaking from all the rust. I wonder how many more years this place has got before it all falls apart.   
****

I sprawl myself over the rows of washing machines in the middle of the laundrette and stare at the bruises on the ceiling, green bubbling out of the cracks in between. It looks like it's caught an infection. Then again, everything in here looks like it's caught an infection. Something sticky eating away at the corners. But it's the only laundrette in Brockenhurst that's open 24/7, so it will have to do. Then again, it's the only laundrette in Brockenhurst. So. Period.

(I've been coming here since Secondary. Ever since I threw that temper tantrum and took it out on our washing machine in the bathroom, wedged between the shower and the sink, held tight and perfect for kicking your feet raw. I was never good at dealing with math homework.) 

I think I'm the only person who keeps this place in business. Besides Moonstruck Mona, the mental cat lady who wears Christmas hats all year long and crawls into the dryers to talk to her hands. Sometimes, she brings a pillow with the Queen stitched onto both sides. And then she'll talk to that. Or it. Or her two-dimensional majesty. Mona's the closest thing Brockenhurst has to a nut case. But she's completely harmless and thoroughly lovable. Sometimes, she'll read my palm for a pint and tell me that I'm destined to become the first homo sapien to eat Pluto dust. It used to be enough to make me feel like I was meant to do great things, giant fucking monumental things. But that's just in Moonstruck Mona's rabbit hole of a brain. In the real world, I have no clue if I'll even make it past the last year of school - let alone lick the surface of another planet. August's almost over. Thinking about it makes me want to shove the barrel of a shotgun down my throat.

Click-clack. Bang. Problem solved.

"You look like whatever's bothering you can only be muted by a drastic increase in sugar intake," Penny says from where she's twirling in her laundry cart, hair flying around like sparklers. She's still laughing. It's louder than the rumbling of the dryers.

We stopped by the tiny kiosk squashed between O'Neil's and the abandoned Pizzeria. Penny bought herself the biggest container of chocolate fudge ice cream and six cans of cherry soda - because why the hell not - the kind that tastes like sticky fizz and chemicals.

It's the strangest thing. It's in the middle of the night, and Penny's clutching ice cream against her chest like she can't let it out of her sight, and she's getting sugar-high straight out of a travel mug full of cherry soda.

It's a bizarre Bunce thing. They transfer everything they drink into travel mugs and thermoses. Even when they're sitting at the dinner table.

Penny's brought the blue one with Captain Pugwash on it, the cartoon pirate, in all his mustached, flabby glory. I think it's Pip's. The Bunces start caffeinating the second they pop out of the uterus. Maybe that's why they've got a thermos fetish…and why their house is always bursting at the seams. Everybody's a hyperactive rocket launcher.

I'm just happy that right now the mug is full of soda. I'll choose sugar-rushed Penny over caffeinated Penny any day. Caffeinated Penny is terrifying. She talks like an adrenaline-fueled sports commentator and snaps her fingers so much it drives you insane. Sugar-rushed Penny sits in laundry carts and eats ice cream straight out of the tub with a plastic fork. (The kiosk was out of spoons.)

Sugar-rushed Penny can also be terrifying. But she smiles more. And that makes up for everything else.

"Give," I say, and I stretch out an arm, fingers going grabby.

Penny hits the dryers with her feet and pushes her way towards me, the wheels of the cart creaking. They leave grey marks. The whole entire floor looks like an ice skating rink on a busy day.

Her head bumps against my head. She grins. 

"Here." She hands me the mug. I reach for the ice cream.

"I think this might help more," I say.

Penny smacks a hand against my stomach.

"Ow."

"I bought that. You said you weren't in the mood for ice cream."

"Now I am." 

"Just because you can't handle watching people eat," she mumbles and leans her head against the edge of the basket. I pout. She hands me the fork.

"But only a little. I need this shit." I watch her thrust the blue mug into the air, the fluorescent lights eating at the color until it's washed out and pale. The soda dribbles down the sides, leaving marks on Captain Pugwash's bloated face. Like he's crying red. Little fat melancholic pirate man.

"How bad is it this time?" I ask, digging the fork into the chocolate fudge. (Chocolate fudge ice cream is the only decent thing the kiosk sells. Besides over the counter spliff. But that's a local secret. And a local treasure. Brockenhurst is a nasty little town.)

"Hm?" Penny pulls the travel mug back down, the bottom on her chest, the cap against her mouth.

"You hate cherry soda...but you're downing it like a sugar junkie…and you're trying to eat a whole entire container of ice cream. With a fork."

She doesn't say anything, just wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her yellow jumper. She's in her pajamas. It's her thing now. She tells her parents she's going to bed early and just jumps out of her window wearing nothing but boxers and T-shirts. Two days ago she met me at O'Neil's in her mum's panda slippers. She says she's going places, and that people who are going places ' _don't need to be self-conscious in a town that embodies the very definition of insignificance_ '.

"Is it…you know…the thing?" I ask. Slowly.

"Simon." She flashes me a don't-go-there look.

"I'm just - wondering."

Penny snaps the lid of the mug shut and rolls her head towards me.

Ever since that afternoon at the tree house, I haven't brought up Cambridge once. I haven't even let the thought of it linger for more than a few seconds. I'm always afraid Penny might hear right through my skull, crack it open and rip the dreaded C-word straight out of my brain with her bare hands.

She's been babbling on about America like crazy, talking about lending a car from some relative in San Francisco, planning camping trips and motel stays and American road trip adventures. 

I've been nodding. I'm good at that.

"I just don't feel like being at home today…" Her eyes flick across my face. They're the only things that can't lose their color, not even in the laundrette lights. Earthy and warm, two burrows beneath the ground.

"It's like nobody can hear me," she says.

"I can hear you."

"That's why I'm here. With you." She smiles. Exhausted. "And this." She flicks the mug. "And that." She snatches the loaded fork out of my hand and bites off the chunk of fudge.

I reach out and wrap one of her curls around my finger and watch her gnaw on the plastic fork.

"What about Micah?" I ask, careful and quiet, like I might scare her away.

Penny closes her eyes. The space between her eyebrows crunches. I wish I could rub it smooth, rub the bad stuff away.

"Nothing," she says, just as careful, just as quiet, like the word itself might hurt her if she says it too loud. "What about Agatha?"

I groan and let her hair go. I snatch the fork out of her hands and stab it into the ice cream. I sit up, the world going blotchy for a second.

Penny still has her eyes closed.

We've had this conversation a dozen of times, and lately, it only ever ends in a fight and a day's worth of radio silence.

"Stop averting," I say and stuff a load of ice cream down my throat, let it turn my gut into something arctic.

"Says you," she mumbles.

"He's written me, like, ten e-mails. E-mails, Penny. And they're fucking - Barbara Cartland novels. Just talk to him. I think he might be dying. In the last one, he said he was going to swim across the ocean and fetch you himself."

Penny twitches an eye open.

"Fetch me. What. Like a damsel in distress."

"Oh, fuck off. He's being - I don't know - romantic."

"He's being irrational. I am not some vulnerable, reliant, insec - "

"Penny."

"He can't just fetch me, Simon."

"This is Micah. He's destined to become the president of the goddamned universe, Penny. He _can_ fetch you. It just depends on whether you'll kick him in the balls or not," I mumble, staring down into the crater burrowed into the tub. "Just stop being so hardheaded. At least, give him a chance to talk to you." I stuff another fork-full of ice cream into my mouth. The cold makes my teeth ache.

"You sound like Agatha," Penny says. She opens her eyes. Stares me down. I choke on a chunk of fudge. She takes the tub out of my hands and settles it into her lap. When she tries to reach for the fork, I hide it behind my back. 

"What?" I blurt.

"She called me today," she says. The way people say the sky is blue.

" _What_?"

"She talked to me…for, like, two seconds. It was weird. Told me to tell you that she wants to see you. She's meeting up with some kids at the pub next week. I don't know. She didn't really say she wants to 'talk'. But, I mean, she specifically said 'see', so…and she didn't really tell me 'why'. I mean, I know why. You two, you, I mean - the big fight. Like, I know. It's just that - "

"Your techniques for changing the topic are getting dirty and sloppy, and we're not going to do this." I point the fork at her nose but quickly tug it away and slam it beside me onto the washing machine. 

"I think we should talk about it." She clamps her lips between her teeth, a hand reaching out to play with a drooping sleeve of my sweater.

"You're still averting," I say.

_We both are._

She squeezes her hand into the opening and tugs at my forefinger. I flick her and pull my hand away, sit on it to make a point like a cross child.

"I know. Christ, I know!" Penny groans. "But, Simon…she wants to see you. She - "

"I'll forward you his Barbara Cartland e-mails." 

"And now you're the one who's trying to change the topic."

"Maybe."

"Well, you're shit at it."

"You're shit at it."

"Will you talk to her?"

"Will you talk to him?"

"I'm not sure," she says, eyes narrowing.

"Neither am I," I say, trying to cock an eyebrow. I'm pretty sure I just look constipated.

I blink first. I'm weak. Her face cracks. Penny's laughter is like getting hit by a landslide of confetti. It gets stuck in your ears and your nose and your mouth, everywhere at once.

I grin and kick her cart. She goes rolling across the laundrette, twirling and cackling like a tipsy firecracker.Her cart bumps against the dryers. She's smiling. All teeth. Her head lolls back onto the edge of the cart, and she closes her eyes. She's been doing that a lot. Shutting the world out.

I jump from the washing machines and crawl into another cart, push my way towards her until my sneakers hit hers. Side by side. Cart to cart.

"Did she tell you that I went to her house?" I say.

Penny opens her eyes, but only halfway, lids hiding the rest of the brown. She chews on her bottom lip and shakes her head.

"Didn't even get to go inside. I just stood at the gate and talked to Helen through the speaker…camera…thingy. Said she wasn't home. But she was. I know she was. She didn't want to talk to me. And I think," I pull my feet into the cart, crunch myself against my knees, "I think I was fucking relieved. You know…maybe just a little. 'Cause I - like, I didn't even know what I was going to say. No clue. I had no clue."

I take a deep breath, suck the soap and the bleach out of the air. 

"I don't know. Maybe there's nothing left to say."

Maybe I finished my rations on that stupid fight. I can still see her in the glow of the Christmas lights, white and red and green. She was brighter than all of it. So bright. Even when she's angry, she's nice to look at.

"I think I'm - I think it's okay. And isn't that kind of terrible? Three years, and I'm okay. This is not the way it's supposed to feel like. I should be writing, like, a million Barbara Cartland e-mails. I should be going insane. I should feel like I'd swim across the ocean for her. And fetch her."

Penny snorts. But it's sad and tiny, and it's gone the second it started. No confetti laughter.

I stare at a lonesome fluorescent tube above our heads, fizzing on and off, little spots lining its white belly. Dead insects.

I've never let myself think about how those three years didn't mean much. Because it would feel like I wasted them. On what - I don't know. On our relationship? I don't know if relationships are supposed to feel like that. Like noise. Like chronic static. But never loud enough to cause a reaction.

Being with Agatha was something steady. She was this murmur in the background. Constant - but still a murmur. It was the same as knowing the earth orbits the sun…or the sky is blue. She was this piece of information wedged in the back of my head. And that was it. She just existed. Not beside me - but above me, far, far away. Like a star. Blinding and beautiful and tethered to another solar system. Even when she was so close, when she was bare and against me, just skin, no air in between, she was too far away for me to grasp her and pull her down. Maybe I liked it better like that. Maybe I liked imagining who she might be than knowing who she actually is.

"Did you love her?"

Penny's voice pulls me out of my head. I open my eyes. I didn't even realize they were closed in the first place.

"Hm?"

"Agatha," she says. "Or do you - well, do you think you did? Love her?" Penny shifts in her cart. The wheels squeak.

"Agatha?" I say. It feels strange saying her name out loud. Like I forgot how to. Like it's completely new, squeaky clean on my tongue.

_A-ga-tha._

"Yeah," Penny says. "Agatha."

"Agatha," I mumble. "Agatha…I don't know."

I've never asked myself that question. What if I just mistook it for something else? A mistake, maybe. Mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Not Agatha. Just…the feeling.

I thought I was going to marry her. To me, those were always the way things worked. Sometimes, I'd lie in bed and picture us in a house near Rhinefield lane, like her parent's house but smaller, tinker-town-ish. And we'd live happily ever after (off of her trust fund, of course…because we wouldn't work a single day…we'd just have lots of mind-blowing grownup sex and drink champagne and stuff our bellies with caviar). And then we'd have two kids. A boy and a girl. And Agatha would buy a trillion horses. And then eventually, we'd die. I'd picture myself dying first, and that would be okay. Agatha would throw my ashes into the ocean. Or the pond at her parent's house with the koi fish. They'd probably eat me. I've always wanted something dramatic.

"What about you? Did you? I mean - do you?" I blurt.

"Do I what?"

"Love him?" The question slips out of my mouth before I have the time to stop myself. I don't know if I'm trying to change the topic or just trying to tug my thoughts away from that dark vortex in the middle of my head.

It feels like we're two kindergarten kids trading stupid little secrets.

We don't do this much. Heart-to-hearts. Only when we're lying in Penny's bed, and it's so late our brains go stupid. I feel like I won't have another chance to ask Penny about _him_ without her getting angry - or for Penny to listen to me talk about _her_ without me getting sad.

Penny shifts, closes her eyes again, scrunches her eyebrows. She looks so young like this. Like little Penelope. Eight years old and fierce. The one that fought pirates with me in the woods. The one who broke her wrist while defending me from ogres with a sword disguised as a tree branch.

"So, so much," she whispers. "Accidentally. By accident. I think it happened by accident."

I blow a corkscrew curl away from her forehead. She crinkles her nose. Eyes still closed.

"Is that why you don't want to talk to him?" I ask.

Her bottom lip starts quivering. Barely. I hold her hand like that time she came out of surgery, the remnants of that ogre fight tucked beneath a thick cast. She looked so tiny in that hospital bed, like something that wouldn't be able to stare giant monsters dead in the eye. And yet, she had. She did. She still does.

But this is different. This isn't something you can fight away with stick swords and battle cries. This is the real world with real things, real people with real problems.

I think I'd rather deal with make-believe monsters.

Penny clutches my hand a little harder.

"Just doesn't make sense," she says. "I think that's the scary part."

"Why doesn't it make sense?"

"I don't think it's supposed to make sense." She laughs. But it doesn't sound like a laugh. "Because it's always an accident. It's got to be. Right? It's completely unintentional, and - you, of course, you don't mean to, but then you wake up, and there's this person taking up all the space in your head."

I shift in my cart, let my head lean against the edge like Penny. I stare at that fluorescent tube again, above us, fizzing. It reminds me of the streetlight on the parking lot in Barton-on-Sea. I think of the cliffs. I think of him sitting next to me.

"Loving by accident," I say.

I think of his hair in the coastal wind.

"Loving by chance," she says.

I think of his mouth saying my name.

"Maybe that's why it didn't work out with Agatha," I say.

I think of him and the way he doesn't make sense.

"She just made too much sense."

Penny plays around with my fingers, weaves hers into mine. She clears her throat.

"Simon?" She opens her eyes. She lets my hand go.

"Penny?"

Her hands crawl up to her face to slip beneath her glasses. She rubs her eyes until they're red and puffy. I can see the zing of the sugar-rush leaking out of her brain, leaving her drowsy.

"Sometimes, I used to - " She takes a ragged breath. "I used to think you let yourself believe that she was it. Everything you wanted. Everything you needed. Like...she was a gift, and you had to take it." Her fingers crawl through the metal bars of her cart and mine. She finds the sleeve of my sweater, works her fingers into the mesh. "Maybe…maybe because she felt like a chance you'd never get again. You know, like she was so much more than you thought you were entitled to. And you deserve more, Simon. You do. You deserve to choose what you want and not just take whatever the bloody world is giving you."

I stare at a smudge of a fingerprint on the left lens of her glasses.

"And if you ask yourself now...I mean, if you really just ask yourself now. Without her. Just you. What do you want, Simon?"

I look away. My eyes find the ceiling, the fluorescent tube above. I count the fizzes to ten.

_What do you want, Simon?_

Fuck-all do I know.

It should be the easiest thing. Simple. Like happiness. That's something you're supposed to say. It's good enough, vague enough, without having to justify.

Happiness. Or love. Or triumph. Or light at the end of the tunnel. But those are the big stuff, the 'all-in-all'.

"What do you want…" Penny says, and it sounds like she's so far away, drifting.

_Sometimes, I want to stop. I want the world to stop. I want me to stop because I can't keep up._

_But then sometimes, I'm selfish. Sometimes, I don't want to be left behind. Sometimes, all I want is to not be alone when the world stops. When I stop. When my heart stands still and everything goes dark._

 

 

**Baz**

"Baaaaaz…my feet hurt."

"Well, you've got to suck it up."

"You suck it up. And I hate this dress. Can't breathe."

"Suck your stomach in."

"Suck your stomach in."

"I don't have a stomach."

"How do you eat, then?"

"I don't."

"I see you eat."

"It's an illusion."

"I hate you."

"I know. Come on, show me some teeth, Mo. Or father's going to yank at your mouth and carve in a smile with a kitchen knife."

"Don't wanna smile."

"Smile, Mordelia. Like this, see? It's easy. Stop acting like it's an enigma."

"What's an enig - Stop it! You look scary!"

"It's supposed to look scary."

"What. Smiling?"

"Precisely."

"Why?"

"So nobody is tempted to talk to you. Smile…like you'll eat them alive if they come too close. Just smile, okay? And promise me- Mordelia, look at me, hey, eyes over here - no tantrums today. Promise?"

She nods.

"Like this?" She smiles. Hungry.

"Brilliant," I say.

Seeing Mordelia smile like that reminds me of ten-year-old me. Little feet squeezed into polished shoes, toes bruising, suit pants tight-tucked, jacket sharp like toy soldier armor. My father's voice in my head:

_Smile, smile, smile._

And I did. Until he told me to stop because I was scaring away the party guests. (Because Natasha would never smile like that. It's always Natasha.) It was a game to me. I'd flash my teeth at anyone who looked at me long enough, bared them, bit the air apart like something rabid. I stopped doing it once he set me straight with his hands and the very first batch of swears I'd ever heard. 

This is Mordelia's first time being part of father's twisted little show-and-tell. It's like he's stuffing her into this display case with me, and there's barely enough air for one pair of lungs.

I just need to get this over with as fast as possible.

Tomorrow's the last day of summer. I've got a ton of work to catch up on before my father notices I've been slacking. (Because fuck Simon Snow Saunders and his chronic case of shirtlessness. Christ.)

I push Mordelia through the white-tiled mansion, down the winded stairs that lead to the Beaumont's kingdom of a garden: Victorian rose temples, aviaries bustling, vine-infested gazebos harboring swings lined with pink patterned cushions, mosaic paths flashing brighter than the electric blue sky. Mrs. Beaumont forced a tour on every single one of her garden party guests last year, busting out the details like she was going down a checklist. (" _Oh, and the saffron finches in the aviaries are - of course - imported from South America. Pretty things, aren't they? Cost us a fortune, those pretties! A fortune! And they're so loud! It's such a shame._ ")

I'll make sure to hide Mordelia from her sticky grasps. Mrs. Beaumont is the worst kind of pincher there is. She loves digging those pastel fingernails into the cheeks of children, smiling and cooing like she'll steal them away once their parents are too busy looking at her saffron finches in the aviaries.

Mrs. Beaumont is a nightmare. Father thinks she's an airhead addicted to plastic surgery and attention of any kind. But her husband is one of the biggest investors in the Hampshire hospitals, so when she invites us to her infamous Beaumont garden parties - my father makes sure to drag me with him. Daphne has somehow been able to get out of this one. I think he agreed to it because she's been giving him the silent treatment for days now. The house has been so quiet lately, more than usual, like a beast during hibernation. I keep wondering when it'll open its eyes. I'm waiting for the real shitstorm, for the roof to cave in, for the end of the world.

A family can't be this quiet without it leading somewhere.

Mordelia stumbles over the mosaic path, her feet swollen in those tiny shoes. I stretch out my hand. She looks at it quizzically, but grabs it, nonetheless. She's clamping down on my fingers until it stings. 

The party's getting louder by the second. The women, butter-brown-tanned, squeezed into floral dresses and hats like pastries. The men in boat shoes and folded chinos.

Cigars. Cupcakes. Gossip. Violent chatter between bleached teeth. Champagne pearling out of pores in the sticky August heat. That obligatory sweet stench of alcohol: a promise of white lies.

It's like a Mad Hatter's tea party.

We weave our way through the crowd, waiters buzzing around with silver trays weighed down by pastries and champagne glasses. Mordelia's huffing and puffing like a tiny gremlin, stomping her feet into the ground and trying to make the earth shatter. I grab a cupcake from one of the trays and stuff it into her mouth. It keeps her quiet for a while. But she's still stomping with her feet.

I spot Mrs. Beaumont by the aviaries, talking to a group of women, chitchatting louder than the birds. She's all bee-stung, swollen, oozing right out of the openings of her dress. Bright pink. It makes my eyeballs ache when I stare at it too long.

I jerk to a stop and steer Mordelia in the other direction - because fuck that woman and her child-cheek-hungry fingernails - towards the small constellation of tables by one of the gazebos. It's where all the bored kids are, picking at pastries and hunching over their phones while their parents are getting drunk a few tables away.

Mrs. Beaumont has always had a structure to her gatherings:the children in one corner, the teenagers in the other, and the adults - the important people, the ones that matter - at the big tables with the big cakes and the big chatter.

We're shuffling towards the gazebo when I spot someone else I want to avoid standing right next to it.

He's looming over a glossy, ponytailed girl. Julie. She's touching up his hair, eyebrows scrunched like she's scolding him, muttering. And he's nodding. Just nodding. Even here, even now, he's not enough of anything.

Phillip's always a 'barely'. Lines blurred. He's a smudge of a human being.

He was a smudge when it started in the locker room after lacrosse practice. He was a smudge when it oozed into any social gathering our parents dragged us to. And he was a smudge when it snuck into my bedroom in the dead of the night.

He looks over at us with those two murky ponds burrowed into his face. And it's like all those times before. I'd look at him, and he'd look at me, and I'd nod, and he'd nod, and we'd get drunk on leftover champagne in the kitchen and meet in the guest bathroom, get each other off against the porcelain sink. Hasty and sticky and terrible. We'd be wiping off spunk from our blazers while Julie galavanted around the garden, flashing that cross hanging around her neck. And the purity around her finger. A halo-gold promise.

Perfect little Christian girl. If only she knew.

Maybe that's why we did it in the first place… just to do something nasty behind the iron-rod backs of these perfect people. A quiet, insignificant rebellion.

I turn away when Julie flicks her ponytail over her shoulder to find out what Phillip's staring at for so long.

We're not doing this anymore. We haven't talked for a while. Or rather, I haven't been calling him in the dead of the night when my hands won't do. I've been distracted. Maybe by the kid that keeps breaking flower pots in my garden. Or maybe by the decision to stop being somebody's scary secret.

Lately, I've been having these outbursts right before I fall asleep, and all I can think of is what it might be like to be somebody's declaration. To be uncovered and exposed, all of my crookedness out there in the open. What would it be like to be seen from space?

Phillip can keep living in the dark for all I care. May he have a billion ponytailed, super hetero, Christian babies. 

I steer Mordelia in the opposite direction, try to get as far away from Mrs. Beaumont's fingernails and Phillip's messed up life.

Today I'm too busy dealing with mine.

We end up sitting at an empty table as far away from everybody as possible. Mordelia works her way through cupcake after cupcake, icing sticking to her cheeks and her dress. I end up rubbing her down with a napkin every five minutes until she almost bites my fingers off in protest.

 

✕

 

Father takes Mordelia first. I watch the way he bends down to whisper things into her ear, his hand tough on her back. I'm sure it's nothing I haven't heard before. ( _"Back straight."_ and _"Smile, child."_ and _"Don't look them in the eyes for too long_. _"_ ). He'd never take two family members at a time. He thinks it's 'chaotic'. You need to keep the groups latched to one story. It's his words and your face (one face). You can't have another little thing awkwardly standing in the background, flashing some sad excuse of a smile while picking at the skin around its fingernails. You can't share a spotlight. So you take your turns.

It's a lonely thing, standing next to him for half an hour while he pushes you from group to group. All you do is keep your mouth shut, so he can let his words define you. In the face of these people - for that half an hour of his hand on your back, holding you, caring for you - he turns you into something extraordinary. And it feels so good being something so golden. For that half an hour, you're his pride and joy. You're his very own phenomenon.

Just like her.

It's addictive. He's good with words. He's even better at bullshitting. And he makes you believe you could actually turn into that, a prodigy, his pride and joy, a phenomenon. But then he lets you go, his hand leaving your spine, and you go crashing down. And you're just you. Never enough. 

I don't know how he thinks he can turn us into something we're not capable of being. Lately, I think he's not going to stop with me. He's starting to look for her somewhere else. I think he hopes he can find her in others because he's realizing there's not enough of her in me.

I remember all those times he told me that nobody is original, that there is with certainty someone like you on this earth - and that there must be another one of her out there. Another Natasha. 

(" _Why do you think history repeats itself, Basilton? Because man is repetition. Man never changes. Carbon-copies of a concept. An idea. You are not special. You are not one of a kind. You are not significant. You are a character, a role that has been played and is being played by millions at this very moment. Different faces. Same minds. Xerography. Nothing in that skull of yours is exclusive, boy. You are common. Typical. You do not cause a ripple in this universe. Nobody does_.")

It's funny how desperate he is to prove his own theory. Maybe I wish he was right. Maybe I wish it could be me, just so he wouldn't drag others into his psychotic obsession. There's no other way you could describe it. A psychotic obsession. A tragic delusion.

I don't want anyone to feel like this. I don't want Daphne to feel like this. Or Mordelia. Or Octavia, or Arabella, or Tybalt, or Fiona, or anyone else. I wish he was right. Maybe then, this could just stop with me.

"No!"

I look up just in time to witness Mordelia screeching - " _No, no, no!_ " -and batting my father's hands away. The group of women circling them goes mute, their champagne glasses quivering.

"No!" Mordelia shouts again. Twenty minutes is all she can take before cracking. More like exploding into a purple-pink mushroom cloud.

The whole garden is a caught in a blackout. Everybody's staring, holding their breath. A clink of a glass. A muffled cough. I watch the back of my father's neck strain, red, raw. I imagine I can hear his heart pump his blood faster. 

"Sweetheart, please, calm down, we're just - " He's bending down, trying to grab her flailing arms. Her pigtails are soaring around her head like propellers. The women stumble back, manicured hands on their hearts. It's like they're afraid of a rabid animal. Mordelia barks - fucking barks, why the fuck?! - bares her cannibal teeth.

I'm stumbling onto my feet, chair hitting the table and toppling over.

"No! I don't want - No!" she shouts. Feeding the static.

"She hasn't been feeling well. Anger is her output," my father tries to explain. I can see the edges of his face flaking, the rage behind it boiling up fast.

"No!"

"Loves making a scene, this one." He's cracking. A nervous cackle. A hand slicking his hair back. Yanking. Knuckles bulging, pink-ish.

"Excuse us," he says, probably louder than wanted. 

He's pulling her towards the house, a hand around her arm, the skin around the grip losing color fast, going grey.

Mordelia starts screaming, trampling so hard my father has to keep her upright. He drags her up the stairs. She stumbles, her left slipper loosening around her foot and tumbling three steps down. He rips her onto her feet. She stops. He yanks. She falls. She screams. He hauls her into the house, an apologetic smile flashing towards the guests, innocent, small. Completely believable.

I stare at the middle of the staircase, at Mordelia's lonely slipper. A swollen kind of purple, the little rhinestones pretty in the afternoon sun.

Mrs. Beaumont bursts into a giggle, the unfastened skin beneath her neck vibrating like that of a thanksgiving turkey ready for butchering.

"Well. Children will be children," she squawks.

A wave of strained laughter rolls across the garden tables and the mosaic path. It's like nobody really knows why they're laughing - just that they should because they don't want to feel left out. And in a place like this, with people like these, you don't ever want to feel left out.

Mrs. Beaumont looks over at me, her smile wavering. The tiniest glitch. I want to punch the flab straight out of her dress.

I rush across the garden, towards the house, and I pick up Mordelia's slipper on my way up the stairs. I hold it like a lifeline.

I fight my way through the corridors, follow the echo of Mordelia's shouts down the hallways, to the foyer, and out the front door. He's dragging her down the driveway, past the rows of shiny cars and clipped bushes, past the main gate. Onto the open road. Where nobody's watching. It's just the woods and the sky and the asphalt, hot and sticky, latching to my shoes like chewing gum.

"Don't hurt her!" My mouth is moving before I have time to register what I'm saying. I'm sucking the heat straight out of the air, feeding something angry in my gut. Making it hotter - when I know I shouldn't.

He snaps around, his eyes on mine, in mine, spiking. Icicle blue. I can't move. The shoe slips from my fingers. Mordelia tries to rip her arm out of his grip, but he pulls her closer, up, the tips of her feet barely on the ground.

"Excuse me, Basilton?" Calm. Hardly loud enough for me to hear. I watch the heat crawl up his arms, blotchy-red. Until he's nothing but meat, still beating, wet.

"Don't fucking hurt her," I shout, ripping the words out of the pit of my hot stomach. He jerks his head to the side. Like I punched him. Hurt him. And I want to. I want to so bad. It scares me. Because all I can hear is Mordelia's voice in my brain:

" _You hate him, too._ "

I blink. He lets Mordelia go. She plops onto the middle of the road, eyes ripped open, big like planets. He's darting towards me, steps so hard they could make tectonic plates shift. My skin's screaming. He's got me. Tethered. I can't look away, can't move. Like all those times before. When he's got me, I'm stuck. When he's got me, he's got me for good. He raises his hand, crumples it tight, the clunky red ring on his finger stinging in the sun. And I know, I know, I know.

_"He hates us, too."_

_"Us?"_

_"All of us. Family."_

_"That's a horrible thing to say, Mordelia."_

_"But it's the truth."_

I stumble back, thinking I could still get away. I pinch my eyes closed. Blackout. His fist on the side of my head. Thunder. 

_"Truth is never nice."_

I stumble back, try to grip, but all I can feel is air. Head vibrating. Bone combusting. White noise.

He didn't even bother to take off the ring. I imagine the indent of it stuck in a fold of my brain. A tiny pit, something scooped out. Missing.

I'm wheezing.

"Get up."

I can feel his hands on my arms, the ground beneath me, rugged, hot. I didn't feel the fall.

"I said - _get up_." His face so close. Skin covered in blotches. I'm not sure if they're in my head or not. Smudgy. Everything smudgy. His breath on my face.

"Do you want to hurt me, boy?" He's got me by my collar. Looming. His face against the sun. Human eclipse. "Do you want to hurt me!" Blaring. "I said, do you want to hurt me. Do it! Give me all you've got. Take a hit, Basilton. Take a sodding hit!" He's so close there's no more air. Just heat. And red. And liquor. And nothing of it's mine. "Hurt your father."

_You and I both know I can't afford to._

I bite my tongue. I spit. I regret it the second I watch my saliva dribble down his cheek.

The word _disgust_ flashes through my head. Then _dirty_ , then _fuck you_ , then _panic_ , then _what have I done_.

He pulls me closer. I'm bracing for…everything. But he shoves me off, wipes his cheek with the back of his hand, his unused hand, the one that held me steady.

I feel like throwing up.

"I thought so," he says. "I thought so." He laughs. Jittery. A violent little accident. He rips his eyes open and looks up into the sky. 

When I was a child, I thought he was capable of anything. Even stupid things. Like keeping his eyes open while looking straight into the sun. Not blinking. Not burning. Not once. Not ever. 

"Mordelia," he shouts, still staring up. There's the tiniest moment where I think he's searching for her, Natasha bloody Grimm, between the moon and the North Star. But it's like he knows she's not watching yet. The sky is wiped clean, a blue gorge, an open throat. 

"Get off the road, sweetheart. It's dangerous." He looks down, smiles at me. Cannibal teeth. He'll eat anything that comes too close.

"Very, very dangerous." He turns his back on us and walks towards the house with his head held higher than ever, his spine straight, hanging from the sky.

"I want you both in the car. We're going home. I'll be back in a few minutes. Somebody has to apologize for the - " He waves his hand in the air, red ring brighter than the sun. I can feel the indent in my brain. Aching. "Debacle."

Mordelia's still on the road. I shuffle towards her and pull her onto her feet, brush the dirt off her dress. She flinches like I'm hurting her. I let her go. She stares at my stomach.

"Oh, and shall I grab you two some cupcakes for the drive home? Strawberry, perhaps?"

I pinch Mordelia's arm.

_Don't you bloody answer._

He turns. He laughs. This time on purpose.

"Strawberry it is, then."

 

✕

 

"Don't tell Daphne. Don't tell anyone," I say once we're in the backseat. I hand Mordelia her shoe, but she shies away. She's curled into the seatbelt, head leaning against the window.

It's a stupid thought - but it reminds me of Simon, crumpled, folded into his skin. And I wondered what was wrong with him. I wondered why he looked so small. Like he all wanted was to be meaningless enough to disappear without a trace.

"Why?" she mumbles. She pulls the snot up her nose, rubs at her face with fists. Tiny things. Barely big enough to hurt anything. I wish she'd never grow. I want her to stay so small half of the world is too high up for her to see. And if she can't see it, then she can't know. And if she doesn't know, then she can't understand.

The scary part is…she already understands more than she should.

"Why," she says again. But it doesn't sound like a question. 

And I can hear him in my head, his voice fighting its way onto my tongue, pounding its fists against my teeth to get out.

"Because we're family," I say. Just like he says it: words so heavy they're law. "Because family always comes first. We won't have a family if you tell. We won't have anything. Nothing. And we can't afford to have nothing."

Mordelia reaches for one of my fingers. She holds it tight, my skin, my knuckles, my bones.

_Because we're family. Because family always comes first._

 

 

**Simon**

I hear it somewhere in the AM, somewhere between failed attempts at tossing and turning myself to sleep. A rough hum. The sound of an engine running. Cutting through the silence like a murmur. Rolling, groaning, thunder machine.  
****

I know it's his car. I know because I remember sitting in it with my head out of the window, listening to the throb beneath the metal fight its way into my ears, my brain, the vacant slots ready for memories. I know because I hear it in my sleep. Over and over again. Static background noise. And on some nights - good nights, so, so good - I hear him singing along to _Mr. Moonlight._

Maybe this is a dream. It's sad how even in my dreams I won't take any chances.

I'm stumbling out of bed, skidding towards my bedroom window with the sheets tangled between my legs. Wary. Wobbly. I kick them off, hands batting to grip the window ledge. I hit a stack of CDs by accident, and the whole thing clatters to the floor, pangs like firecrackers. I slam a hand against my face, try to rub away the sleep. I rip my curtains to the side. My lungs wobble to a stop.

He's right there - man in the moon - standing in the driveway, dress shirt flopping out of his belt, hair a complete disaster. He waves. Fucking waves.

I grip my curtains and pull them closed so fast my brain zings. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just staring at the crack between the blotchy material: streetlights cutting through, oily red paint job of his car, his hair, dull. I've never seen it dull. It's always shiny-slick like he dumps his head into a bucket of grease every morning.

"Simon." His muffled voice. Not a dream. I wish it was. Maybe. I don't know. I never do. Fuck.

"Simon, it's me."

Yeah. No shit.

"Si - I can see you through the curtains, you moron."

I tighten my grip on the curtains, pull them aside enough to squeeze my head through. I scrunch my eyebrows. He scrunches his eyebrows. 

"Are you finished?"

I groan and bat the curtains to the side, fingers fumbling to get the window open. I climb up onto the ledge. He stares at my legs. I look down and realize I'm not wearing any pants. Because of course I wouldn't be wearing any pants when Tyrannus Basilton fucking Grimm-Pitch magically appeared at my doorstep.

I hunch forward, tug the hem of my sweater over my knees. He doesn't have to know I sleep in Spongebob boxer briefs. I'd never hear the end of it.

"Morning," he says, and he digs his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Dress pants. Fancy stuff. Because of course.

I don't know what to say, so I just stare at him for so long he looks at his shoes, runs a hand through his hair. But he jerks to a stop. His fingers fumble to brush it back into his face. It's strange seeing him do that. Cover up. Hide away. I always imagined him to be the kind of person to stare the world dead in the eye, all of him out there, complete, without even blinking. Not once. Not ever.

I shift further across the ledge. I don't know if it's the angle, but he looks so small from up here, folded in on himself, spine loose and everything drooping.

"You look like shit," I say.

He doesn't, of course. I don't think he's capable of looking like shit.

He just looks wrong. Like Baz but with missing pieces, Baz after the fall, Baz with all the lights off.

Fractured Baz.

"Yeah," he mumbles, still looking at his shoes. Or maybe he's looking at nothing at all, and he's just letting his head dangle.

Baz doesn't dangle his head.

"What time is it?" I ask. I need more. I just need him to open his mouth, so I can make sure he's…all right? Okay? Standard? Anything?

He folds a sleeve of his shirt up, his watch on his wrist. It makes his hand look bigger, all the veins thicker, grooves tough and deep. I swallow. I stare at the empty road behind him, a few pillar of streetlights scattered throughout. It's so quiet all I can hear are crickets. And the car engine. And my breathing. It's faster than I want it to be.

"Quarter past three," he says, and he looks up, through me. Not at me. 

"Look, I - " He swallows, head jerking up. He groans at a spot above the roof. The sky, maybe. The moon. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, like he's trying to rub something out.

"I don't know," he says, hands stumbling back down, thumping against his sides, slack. He hides them in his pockets again, then pulls them back out, rubs them across his face, through his hair, yanking, tugging, twitching. This is the first time I've seen his hands move like they don't know what they want to do, where to go, what to look like. Lost fingers.

"I don't know, I just…I want you to - I need you…to just…I don't know." Pushing words out like there's no more space to keep them inside.

I'm not sure if I was supposed to hear them in the first place. Because now all I'm letting myself hear is him saying 'I need you'. Fuck the 'to'.

_I need you. I need you. I need you, Simon._

It's an unhealthy thought. I'm hurting myself.

"I don't know." He's looking at his shoes again. He's so small like this. Fractured Baz.

And I don't care about what happened, why, when, who. I just care about him standing in my driveway, now, here, this. I want to jump off the roof and tackle him to the ground, hold him until he rubs his hair out of his face and straightens his back, controls his hands, cocks an eyebrow, sneers, scoffs, shoves me off and calls me retarded.

But I just keep holding my breath instead - until I don't, and I puff up my chest, press out, "Do you want me to get in?"

His head snaps up, dazed.

"What?"

"Do you want me to get in? You know, the - I mean, the car. Into the car. Your car. Do you want me in it?" It's moments like these that make me wish I'd just been born mute.

Baz moves his head, and I'm not sure if he's nodding or shaking it or just rolling it around like his hands aren't the only things out of control. I'm scared he might break apart. I picture pieces of him scattered across the asphalt, a jumble of arms and legs and twitching fingers that don't know where to go.

I've never seen him so disconnected. It's almost sloppy.

 _Maybe he's just tired_ , I think. _Or maybe he needs someone to fasten him, tighten the strings to pull him back together._

I feel selfish for thinking that someone just has to be me. Because I want it to be me. Because I won't let it be anybody else. Picturing him standing in front of someone else's house - in the middle of the night, like this, in need of something, anything - hurts.

"Okay," I say. Final. "Yeah. 'Course. Okay. Fuck. 'Course. I'm coming. Don't move. Don't you - bloody - " I'm crawling back into my room, my sweater getting caught on the ledge. "Don't you bloody move. Don't move. Okay? Don't - I'm coming. Give me two minutes, yeah? I'm coming. Just - " I watch his roaming hands stutter to a stop. "Just don't drive away without me," I say.

Baz's chest quivers up. Even his breathing is messy. I wish I could plunge a hand into his lungs and fix it. Fix all of him from the inside-out.

There are these stupid thoughts that follow as I shut my window. They're so out of place. And selfish. They don't fit into whatever the hell is going on. I'm tired, dazed, and him being here makes no sense. But they're there, these greedy thoughts crouched in the middle of my head, rocking back and forth like children ready for a temper tantrum. And they're scary, too.

Thoughts like these only ever get me in trouble.

_Just don't go without me, Baz. If you need someone, then I need it to be me. Me. Nobody else. Just me. Don't leave without me. I'll do whatever you need me to do. Everything. Anything. I just need it to be me, me, me. Don't let it be anybody else._

Selfish, greedy, scary.

 

✕

 

He doesn't talk - fractured Baz, mute Baz - just tightens his hands around the steering wheel, eyes fastened to the blackout houses on my street. There's a bottle of expensive looking whiskey on the driver's seat, one-third of it gone.

I grab it, get in, wedge it between my legs, the glass sticky against my jeans. I fasten my seatbelt. And then he tells me to fasten my seatbelt. And then he realizes I already did. He leans his forehead against the steering wheel, hair leaking over his face and hiding everything I want to see. But I'm not sure what I'd do if I did. Maybe touch him, something nice…like a pat on the back or a hand to hold. But he's caved in on himself, breathing against the steering wheel like there's not enough air in the whole entire atmosphere.

I'm scared of touching him. It's like a touch would be a jab would be a punch would be a smash would be the crack of a bone and the death of him. He looks so crumbly I'm afraid of even saying his name. Maybe it might be too loud, and he'll slam his hands against his ears. Maybe he'll be deaf forever.

"Sorry," he says. "Sorry," he says again. Two apologies. It's the strangest thing.

"For what?" My voice is tip-toeing over my tongue, sneaking out of my mouth like a burglar.

"I don't know."

"You've been saying that a lot," I say. Barely a whisper.

I stare at the bottle in my lap.

"When'd you start?"

He turns his head towards me. His hair still in his face.

I grab the bottle by its neck and wiggle it around. He stares at it, hypnotized.

"I don't know," he says. Again. It's like he's talking straight through me, or over me, or past me, but I'm never the target. "An hour ago," he mumbles.

"Do you want me to tell you to stop?"

He shakes his head. I nod for so long I forget that my head's moving.

"Do you want me to drive?"

It's the only question I think I can get away with. I know he'll say no. I don't trust myself with driving nice cars. I don't trust myself with nice anythings. I always end up breaking them, staining them for good, then staining them some more, punching in holes, cracking them between my hands because I don't have a feel for pressure. Irreparable damage. Maybe it's a sign: _stay away from nice things._

It just makes me want to do the opposite. I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

Baz jerks up, head snapping back, and he sucks in so much air I'm afraid there won't be any left for me.

"Fuck no," he exhales. I can feel it on my face. His oxygen. Warm. Whiskey. "Never. If you touch the steering wheel - I will chop your hands off." The cock of an eyebrow yanking at his forehead. But he can't seem to hold it for long until his face falls again, and he's back to crumbling.

I smile. Just a little. I'm still careful. It feels like every move I make might be one move too many.

He shifts in his seat, eyes back to roaming the empty street. He swallows.

"Did I wake you?" So quiet. 

"Couldn't sleep," I say. Quiet, too. So quiet.

"Me neither." He swallows. Then again. Then peers past my shoulder to scan the house.

"What about your father?" he asks. 

"What about my father?"

"Does he know you're…out?"

"He's not home," I say. "And even if he was…wouldn't mind. He wouldn't. I mean - yeah. No. Doesn't matter." I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my sweater like that will fix the shit that keeps stumbling out. "What about you?" I ask.

"My father?"

"Your family?"

"Doesn't matter." He looks down at his hands. Still twitching. 

"Where are we going?"

"Space," he says - like he's floating or dreaming. Or both.

"Space," I say. I smile.

"Space."

Baz like this is the strangest thing. And the saddest. And the loneliest. And I want to brush his hair out of his face and cradle his head, pull him close - do all the things that come after that.

"Let's go," I say.

"To space?"

"To space." I shift in my seat, so I can look at him better. He's still looking at his hands, hair tangled across his face. But there's the tiniest fizz in the right-hand corner of his mouth, a promise of something good.

"That would be nice," he breathes.

"Yeah. Really nice." I press my cheek against the headrest, smooth against my skin, leather smell. Everything in this car has that smell. That sharp waft of new. Except him. He smells like bergamot. And cologne. And smoke. And whiskey. Maybe a little new - but lived in. He's heavy in the air, thick in my lungs. There's a coat of him stuck to the inside of my chest.

I don't want to breathe too much. I'm afraid I might breathe him out.

"I wonder how quiet it is up there," he mumbles, leaning his head against the driver's seat window. Away from me. Far, far away. I imagine he has his eyes closed. I imagine he's up there, floating in the dark, dodging shooting stars and dwarf planets.

"Too quiet," I say.

"Is there something as…too quiet?"

"Yeah." I'm leaning further into his direction, like I'm stuck in his orbit, and he's pulling me. Closer. Tighter. Towards him. The seatbelt slices into the side of my neck. But I keep leaning into his direction until I'm choking. I regret having put the seatbelt on in the first place.

"Yeah. Too quiet." I clear my throat. "Like, so quiet there's nothing to distract you from all the stuff in your head. Maybe...then you can hear everything. Maybe when it's too quiet outside, then it's too loud inside? You know? Might be too much. Maybe we need some noise to not go insane."

His hands stop moving, and he crumples them into a knot, squeezes them between his legs. The pressure crushes the color out of his skin. 

"Don't you want to know about all the stuff in your head?" he asks.

"No," I whisper. "I think some of it's really scary. The stuff hiding in the back. I don't want to hear them."

"But isn't that…avoidance? I don't know…Ignorance, maybe?"

"Yeah. Maybe. But it's easier, I think. 'Cause you've got less shit to take care of. Makes it easier to be happy."

"I don't think it's that simple. But…yeah. Maybe. Maybe."

He mumbles it few more times, that 'maybe', like a prayer, a poem. He's filling up the car with maybes. Until it doesn't make sense, and all I can hear are letters that won't work next to each other.

I lift the bottle and wiggle it back and forth, watch the brown liquid lap at the glass.

"This is complete hands-on avoidance, by the way." I jerk the bottle so quick the insides make a sloshy sound. Baz snaps his head to the side, stares at the bottle. He closes his eyes…before exhaling, a tough tiny huff, and then he's back to leaning against the window. Back to being far, far away.

"Yeah," He says. A slur. "Didn't help anyway…just makes my stomach hurt."

I stare at his stomach beneath the white of his crumpled dress shirt, going up and down, rapid-tempo.

"Aren't you going to ask me why?" he asks. I jerk my eyes away from the sudden twitch of his gut, like he choked on his breath.

"Why what?" I'm back to being tip-toe-careful with my voice.

"Why I'm here," he says.

I shake my head and stop when I realize he can't see me anyways. 

"No," I say. Quiet but solid. "Look, you don't - You don't have to explain. It's okay to feel like shit. Go ahead. Do whatever you want. If you want to sit here…then that's okay with me. If you want to down this shit," I lift the bottle again, "then all right. Do it. Let's fly to fucking space if you feel like it. Anything. Do whatever. I'm in. I'll be here for it all."

I remember that time I cried on his terrace. I remember him getting me towels and making me sandwiches, sitting a few feet away, justwatching. And staying. Just being there. It made me feel like he was right behind me, holding me up by my neck and keeping me steady. 

"You have me until the sun comes up," I breathe. And all I can think is, _look at me, look at me, look at me, wipe your hair out of your face and just look at me._

He doesn't. He just breathes against the window. Maybe he didn't hear me at all.

I stare at his silent hands - still, not moving, hit by a coma - and then I stare at my hands playing around with the bottle, picking at the label on the glass and peeling it off.

"Okay, technically, you've got me until nine because I've got to go to work. But, you know… until then. You know. Yeah," I mumble, more to myself than to him.

I look back up, watch his chest move, too fast, then too slow, back and forth and up and down. Messy breathing.

"Baz?"

More messy breathing.

"Hey." I lean forward, and my hand is in the air, stretching towards him, fingers inches away from his arm. His heat, like a lightbulb that's been switched on for too long.

"Baz."

I touch him, quickly, barely enough to feel a single thing. He jerks up, electric, and he stares at me for so long I'm afraid the earth got stuck mid-orbit without me. But then his chest starts moving again, and I hold my breath because he seems to need so much air. I don't want to take too much. I don't want to take anything at all. 

"Whatever you want," I say. "Okay?" I swallow. "Anything. Anything at all. Okay?"

His jaw strains back and forth, bone sharp in the neon milky glow of the streetlights. He nods.

"Anything," he says. Like he's telling me a secret.

"Anything," I say. Like I'm telling him a secret. A trade of little confidential things. 

He twists the key in the ignition, and I don't have time to gulp for air before his foot slams the accelerator into the floor, straight into the metal - _smash_ \- leaving an indent. The engine's fuming, hot red beneath my seat, the squeak of the wheels biting into the asphalt, and we're off, we're flying, blasting. Up, up and away. 

To space - and everything after that.

 

✕

 

Road rage.

There's no other way to describe it. We're driving too fast to get away with it if we get caught. If getting caught is even an option, when we already broke the sound barrier. He's propelling the car across the main road so fast it's like the tires are barely on the ground, just inches away from rocket launching.

I'm pressed into my seat, sinking in, the back of my head nailed against the leather. I don't know if my eyes are opened or closed. The world is zooming past me in nightshades and streetlight glows. My organs start shifting back, digging into my spine, threatening to crush the knobs apart, break right through my skin, burst me open. Everything's so fast, fast, fast. And loud. And electric. And I imagine I can hear the adrenaline surging beneath my skin in a tight circuit. A red kind of violence.

Just like him.

I've never seen anyone so fucking loaded. His foot is forever jammed against the accelerator, stick shift hooked into fifth gear, constant, engine working overtime. Thunder machine. His hands are shaking from clutching the steering wheel too hard. It's like he's stuck in the throes of something vicious. I can feel the heat on him, the angry kind, the kind that welds molecules and makes the air all chunky. Unbreathable.

I think he's shouting. But I can't make out what. Maybe he's not shouting anything at all. Maybe he's just shouting. Screaming. It's like he's flaking, and everything beneath is crawling out, the scariest things. The truth, maybe. Parts of it.

I think the strangest thing about this is that I'm not even afraid. Not of him. Not of this. I don't feel safe. I just feel sure - in what he's doing. In what he needs to do to force it out, the bad stuff nibbling at his brain. I get it. I know what that's like. Adrenaline's like medicine. It makes you blind, mute, deaf, numb to the rest of the world. You're just beating. Everywhere.

Baz swerves out of the main road, and we're twisting through tangled streets, the forest beside us flashing in a blue-green blur. I'm getting dizzy from the nicks in the road, quick turns, sharp corners. My shoulders bump back and forth. I clutch the handle above the door. Pinch my eyes closed. Rip them back open.

Baz's hand is ruthless on the stick shift, pushing and pulling, the clicks of the gears giving the engine a hiccup of a breather before it starts up again. It's like he's taming a fucking beast, breaking it in, brutal conditioning. 

He snaps the steering wheel around, and we're driving into some empty parking lot. It takes me a while to realize we're at the abandoned Lido on Udney Hill, this tiny bump in the topography of Hampshire, forgotten and withering away beneath the sky. I used to ride my bike up here and sneak in through a crack in the fence, climb down into the dried up pools and pretend I was standing in blue moon craters.

Baz lets the car jerk in eights and circles and zig-zaggy-back-and-forths. Breaking through the flaking white grid of parking lot lines pasted to the asphalt. And then we're just spinning, round and round, and I'm hurled back to the memory of that merry-go-round I got bullied onto every recess in Primary. They'd force me to lie on it - the mean kids with their mean fists - metal crunching against the back of my skull, my arms tangled around the bars. And they would turn it so fast my heart would burst through my ribs, and I'd spit and laugh, taunt them like a bloody idiot, scream, my voice spiraling as I'd dare them to make it spin faster. I liked the bang. The way it scrambled my brain, made it roll around like a loose ball.

And then it stops. The car. The world. The shouting coming out of Baz's mouth. Or mine.

He jams a thumb against a shiny button beside the stick shift and rips the key out of the ignition. He's quiet for a beat. He's not even breathing. And then he jerks forward, knees bracing, and he's punching the steering wheel - once, twice - hair flying. I catch a flash of something dark on the side of his face, but I don't have enough time to get a good look at it before he's unbuckling himself and stumbling out of the car. He doesn't get farther than a few feet. He crumples onto his knees, body folding, and then he's on his back, lying in the middle of the parking lot like a snow angel.

I taste copper. I've been biting the inside of my cheek so hard it's ripped. My head spirals as I fight my way out of the seatbelt, force the door open, get out.

Oxygen.

I gulp for it. My lungs are so needy. I curl a hand into the side of the car door, let it keep me steady. My legs are quaking beneath me, but I push myself away from the car and wobble towards Baz. I stop barely an inch away from his head, stare at him upside-down. His hair is spilled around his face in an inverted halo. I don't know if he's staring back. It's too dark to tell. But it's not too dark for the bruise on the right side of his face to disappear. Red and swollen around a cut at the edge of his brow, the eye beneath it puffy. I know what fresh bruises look like before they go blue.

"Your eye," I say. I sound out of breath.

"I fell," he says. He sounds out of everything.

I swallow. Hard.

"Don't fuck with me, Baz. I know what a punch looks like on a face," I say. "Did you get into a fight?"

I have this picture in my head of him at O'Neil's, yanking that lanky, buzz-cut kid into the air by his collar. I wonder what Baz's fists are like. I bet he's even more ruthless on your skin than on the road.

"Baz," I say.

Quiet.

"Who?" I say.

Quiet.

Baz worms a hand to the back of his trousers and pulls out a packet of fags and a lighter. I shake my head, grunt a little too loud than wanted. I let myself fall down next to him while he lights a cigarette stuck between his teeth. And when he gestures for me to take it, I do. I haven't smoked since that time we drove to Barton-on-Sea. Same kind of night, same kind of car, different kind of fuck-up.

Penny would say he's a bad influence. Penny would also call me an idiot for getting into his car in the first place. I don't think Penny would like him.

I don't know why I'm thinking about Penny.

"Is that why you're so angry?" I ask after I hand him the fag. I fall onto my back with a thud, the pavement cool against my skin. I look at him from the corner of my eyes. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and he takes a deep breath like he's about to say more, but he sticks the fag into his mouth, and he's quiet. I listen to him work the smoke into his lungs.

I laugh. I don't know why. It feels like a terrible time to laugh. Maybe it's the final wave of adrenaline pulling back, the weight of it leaking out my pores. I'm lightheaded. I'm floating. I look up into the starless sky, and I wish I was weightless enough to soar higher than any airplane.

"Don't apologize. I said 'anything', right?"

Baz nods. He presses a stream of smoke out of his mouth, coughs, swallows, says, "Still. I'm sorry."

"D'you feel better, though?"

Now he's the one to choke up a laugh. Baz could laugh at any given time, and it would never sound out of place. It's like he was meant to. Like the atmosphere cracked open a slot just for him to fill with a giggle. And it's the nicest thing. Warm and jittery, makes your ears tingle, makes your stomach sing.

"A bit," he says, turning towards me and flicking the fag onto the concrete.

"But I think I'm going to throw up," he presses out with a hand on his stomach.

I smile.

"Me too," I say. "I mean, that was - bloody insane. I think I forgot my name, like, three times...My brain's mush."

He's so close the slope of his nose is barely pressed against my shoulder. Barely. But it's already enough to make my skin bubble with something warm. I don't know if I could just touch him yet. It feels like I'd cross a million red lines, barricade tapes and flashing 'No Trespassing' signs. It feels like I'd break the rules if I touched him. I don't even know what the rules are. I don't even know what this is. Maybe because I don't even know when this became a _this_. This. Us. Him and me. I think I like the latter more.

'Us' feels personal. 'Him and me' is easier, separated, a wall in between, giving me the choice to turn my back without it hurting too much.

I stare at the bruise on his face, and I wish I cold peel it off his skin, take the pain away. Seeing it makes me feel like I got punched, too. I'm sure it's a punch, or maybe it's the jab of an elbow, or the kick of a foot. It looks manmade. I want to hurt whoever hurt him. I want to hurt them twice as much. I want to beat them to a bloody fucking pulp, make their bones crack, make them hurt.

I'm thinking scary thoughts again. When I'm with Baz, they come and they go. And then they come again. That's the part that worries me the most.

"This…was not the way I wanted to spend the last day of summer," he whispers against my shoulder. I can feel his breath sneak past the mesh of my sweater. It's so warm. His breath on my skin. I shiver.

"How did you want to spend it?" I ask, trying to get my mind off of the fact that he's so, so close.

"Studying," he says.

"'Course." I snort.

"You?"

"Sleeping."

"And eating."

"Sod off."

He laughs. I try not to. I'm afraid I might not hear him if I do. And I like hearing him. Everything he says is worth my silence.

"Simon?"

Especially when he says my name.

"Simon."

Like he's casting a spell…or brewing an airborne love potion.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For the 'anything'." He says it so carefully I can hardly hear him. "I think this is better than space. This is loud. Really loud. I like it. It's easier."

I don't think he would ever say these kinds of things in his garden, sitting on the terrace and watching me fail at doing gardening stuff, or sitting on the ledge of the library, or leaning out of the living room windows, throwing a towel at me and telling me to fix my face because it's dirty and annoying.

He wouldn't do all of this in the real world…with all the real people watching and listening, with all the real things happening.

This is like a dream, some place far above the ground where we're on the same wavelength, breathing the same air. Maybe because it's just us. With nobody watching. And if it's just us, we can get away with things. Like driving to the ocean. Like showing up at each other's doorsteps in the middle of the night. Like lying in empty parking lots and whispering things that don't make sense.

This is something separate. This is a secret. And I want to keep it away from the real world, hide it, crunch it into a ball and shove it behind my heart where nobody can reach it. The real world has the tendency to take away the things I care about. And I care. I care about this. I care about him. More than I intended to.

I hear Penny's voice, honest and bare, not loud enough to fight its way through the rumbling of the dryers:

_"I think it happened by accident."_

It scares me how much I don't want this to go away. This terrible accident. This heart-highway-collision. Right now feels like the last chance to keep it, to hold on before all the real things swoop in and steal it away. I can't let this stop.

I jerk towards him. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never had a single fucking clue. I'm moving too fast to keep up. I've got him pressed down by his shoulders once I catch my breath. I can hear the crunch of his back on the asphalt, spine grinding. And I'm above him, his hips between my knees, my fingers cradling his jaw. He's all sharp angles, bladed corners in the nighttime-dark. It's like I'm cutting my skin on all his edges, but I can't feel the sting. Maybe if I did, I would stop. Maybe if I did, I would let him go and never trust myself with touching him ever again. My head's numb, brain floating in a tub of heartbeats. And my chest…loud. So fucking loud. Blaring. I want to smack my hands against my ears, but I can't pry my fingers out of his skin. I'm dug into him. I'm clinging to his everything. And I remember all those times he got too close, and all I ever wanted to do was punch him and kick him. Hurt him. But I've got him now. Shackled. He's closer than he's ever been. I can't hurt him. I don't ever want to hurt him. I'm crashing through all the red lines and barricade tapes. Breaking the rules. I can't stop. I can't stop for the life of me.

And now my forehead's pressed against his, and he's breathing louder than a hurricane. He's so close. He's crawling straight into me, sneaking up and curling into a crinkle of my messy, heartbeat-drenched brain. He's inside, and I can't let him out. I can't, I can't, can't.

_I'm selfish. Taking advantage of situations. Taking advantage of fractured Baz._

I'm wincing as my thoughts keep hurting me, beating me with clubs and fists, leaving me raw.

My fingers dig into his hair, smooth against my knuckles, the only tangible thing in all of this. The only nice thing. 

We're trading air. Hot red. I want to breathe it straight out of his mouth, his tongue, his teeth. Feed on it. I'm so close. So, so close. Just an inch more and -

His hand on my chest. Strong. Defiant. He shoves me off.

I snap. Eyes open. I'm falling back, hands on the ground and pulling me away from him.

Him.

Baz.

Basilton.

Looking at me like I hurt him. The one and only thing I don't ever want to do. 

_I didn't mean to. Fuck, I didn't mean to._

He's on his knees, eyes wide like gorges. There's something in the way he's staring that feels like a sucker punch.

"I didn't - I -" I'm stumbling over my words, digging through my head to find something that will make sense. But there's nothing in my head. It's still numb, still floating. And I'm staring at his mouth. I can't reach it from here.

_Selfish, selfish, selfish._

I get up, wobbly on my feet. Looking at everything but him. He's so quiet. On the ground.

"I'm - I just -" I try. But I can't find anything.

I'm stumbling backwards before I realize what I'm doing. All I can think of is leaving. This is my thing. I ruin. And I run.

I'm on the other side of the parking lot when he shouts my name. Just once. It's the first time it sounds painful.

I can hear him running. Towards me or away. I don't know. I walk faster. But not fast enough. He hits me like a boulder, impact punching the air out of my chest. I topple forward. But I'm steady on my feet. His arms around my torso, holding on, his face dug into the back of my neck. His breath there, wet and warm. And it's killing me. He's killing me.

I don't know what to do. I'm scared of my hands. I'm scared of what they might ruin next.

He turns me around, tries to pull me closer. Tries to hold me so tight his parts melt back together until he's whole again. He's heavy, weighing me down, but I'll keep him up. I can. I know I can. I will. He buries his face into the crook of my neck. I don't trust my hands with doing the right thing. But I let them go. Because I'm weak...so fucking weak. My fingers crawl up his back, the hollow between his shoulder blades, find his head. I twist my knuckles into his hair, hands tangled. And I tug him so close I'm choking. He's warm, taut-tough, angles blurring, smoothing out. Faint. He's so small like this. Fractured Baz. Mute Baz.

Baz like this is a secret. And I want to keep it all to myself.  

_Because I am selfish. Because I did mean to. And fuck you. Fuck you. I care. I don't know what to do. I care. I care. I care._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tap dances into frame* HALLO I'M BACK!! I'm so sorry for taking so long! I had terrible, terrible writer's block (worst I've ever had, scared the crap out of me. Like shit. I had trouble writing grocery lists...) I have, like, three different versions of this chapter because I was never happy with it. 
> 
> In the first version, Baz doesn't run after Simon...but that just obliterated my heart because Simon is already so, so, so confused. (And melodramatic. I have a thing for melodramatic Simon. It's my jam. My boogie juice.) He's never fallen in love. It's the scariest thing for the poor little coco puff... And he's just such a selfless person that needing somebody and wanting somebody like this feels greedy to him. Because he's so caught up in himself that he's not even taking Baz's feelings into considerations, not even thinking about how maybe he wants/needs Simon just as much. And this just had to end with a hug! Like I couldn't squish more angst into this. Hugs. Hugs for everybody!
> 
> Also, the Grimm-Pitch family is way more messed up than they seem. Honestly, Mordelia's a little crazy. But mostly because she's a rebel at heart...and her father...is...a total psychopath...and his name is actually Malcolm?! I was so convinced his name was Marcus for 8 entire chapters...I have failed you! *hides under rock*
> 
> Anyways, I hope you're all having a lovely day! Hugs and smooches! See you soon <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY, GANG!!! I HAVE RISEN FROM THE DEAD! HERE, HAVE A SHITTY VEGETABLE JOKE:
> 
> What do you call an angry pea?
> 
> Grum-pea. 
> 
> (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

**Baz**

I don't know who's holding who, where we start, where we end, which parts are mine and which parts are his. I'm tangled, woven into something that's made up of skin and heat and heartbeats - one so much louder than the other. Nothing is big enough to silence Simon. I've got him in my hands, against my chest, and he's making his noise, his breathing and beating. Louder than everything, louder than my thoughts telling me to stop and the bruise throbbing on my face. 

He's just breathing and beating. Nothing more, nothing less. All I can hear are the things in his rib cage. He's just noise. He's thunder. 

I fist his sweater, breathe him in, my face in the crook of his neck. He smells like cherry Lucozade and sweat and boy. It's good. It's so, so good it hurts. 

Simon touches the way he talks, a jumble of erratic and sloppy. He's everywhere at once, hands stuttering over my back, my neck, gripping into my hair, letting me go, un-touching me - before dragging me back into him, abruptly, violently. It's as if he wants to be everywhere at once but doesn't know where to start. There's something so hungry about his hands. It's making my brain burst. It's making me lose it.

 _Maybe it's the other way around,_ I think. _Maybe he talks the way he touches._

I holding him, desperate to make all of him fit but I don't have enough space to give. I'm already so full and all I want is to cradle the force that is Simon Snow Saunders.

He's just a boy. He's just a bloody boy. 

And he's a natural disaster. And he's the end of the world. 

He's so much of everything. And then there's me, and right here, right now, I am so small in the face of him. 

His hand grips into the base of my skull, his fingers clammy beneath my hair, scratching along the skin, the bone. He's breathing faster. Or maybe I'm breathing faster. I don't know what sounds are mine. There's this sloshy feeling in my gut, lapping at my insides, a wet fever taking over. Sticky, messy heat. My hands find his neck, the solid carve of his jaw. My cheek against his cheek. Everything trembling. Turbulent. 

A sudden thought knocks my heart off its feet. 

Him being so close hurts. But him being too far away for me to reach hurts just as much. There is no in between. Maybe on a better day, during a better time, maybe with a better mind, I'd find steady ground. But tonight, in the dark and the heat - right fucking now - there is no middle, borders blurred, everything leaking into one another. 

I ran after him because it wouldn't have made a difference: tonight, it hurt all the same…tonight, he hurt all the same.   

And then it stops. All of him. All of me.

The cold hits me hard. Simon's chest so far away from mine. The ground moves beneath my feet. I'm swaying, my world caught up in a big blur. I'm breathing hard. He's breathing hard too. I can hear him. He's still so loud. I think he might be in my head. Simon, crouched in the middle of my brain, breathing. Just breathing.

"I'll - " I swallow. I'm choking. I'm six feet under listening in on everything above. "I'll drive you. Home. I'll drive you home. Yeah, I'll - Yeah." I hear myself say. Underground. 

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm never this lost. I do not stumble. I do not mess up. But I'm looking at him now, and he's so far away, and I'm so far away, and I don't know what do with my brain. I want to touch him. And I also don't - because there's this part in me that knows I was the one who pushed him away in the first place. I don't know if I should be thankful for my hands knowing things shouldn't go any further. Not tonight. 

I think I hate him for it. He's beautiful. He's so fucking beautiful. And why do beautiful things have such terrible timing. 

I try to focus, try to pin him down, but he's diluted, all his edges smudged like he's lost something crucial. He's just noise now. He's nothing else. 

"Baz," he says - the way he touches. Loud. 

"I don't know," I say - the way I feel. Lost. 

I shake my head in hopes he'll understand…that I just don't know. 

"I don't know what I'm doing." I scoff. It's an awful sound. "I don't even know why I'm here. I mean - " I swallow. "What am I - " My hands rake through my hair, the feeling beneath my fingertips so wrong. I want to touch something else. Someone else. They're so hungry for him. All of him.

But now is not right. Now is terrible. Now is terrifying. 

"Just - let's go. Please, let's just go." I'm stumbling towards the car, the rest of my words stuck at the back of my throat, incoherent chunks of ' _I'm sorry_ ' and ' _I hate you_ ' and ' _I hate me more_ ' and ' _Let's elope and get married on the moon, you fucking disaster_ '. 

 

✕

 

"I'm sorry," he says, buckling up without me having to tell him to. "I'm sorry," he says again, a whisper. 

I don't know why he's apologizing. He should never be the one to apologize. Never. Never ever. 

But I don't tell him that. I don't say a single thing to ease his turmoil.

I grab his hand - quickly brush my thumb over his knuckles so hard it hurts - before I let him go. I feel like I've lost the ground beneath my feet all over again, like I'm drifting away from the shore. 

 

✕

 

The more I drag myself through the silent bowels of the mansion, the more he feels like a dream - his hands and his noise, his breathing and beating. The rest of my life is crawling back onto my shoulders with each step I take up the stairs and towards my room, with each oil-dabbed portrait I pass, my whole family tree watching me sink. I’m capsized.

The past hours feel like nothing but a blur, flashes of concrete and hands, red rings and purple slippers, memories oozing into each other and growing into this chunk pressing against my scalp. I want to smash my head open with a hammer and rip it out. Make all of it stop. Make all of it go quiet.

Why does it have to be so much at once?

I can still feel the leather of the steering wheel against my fingers, smooth, sticky with sweat and spilled liquor. I can still feel the thunder, the scream scratching at my throat, Simon's words in my ears, ringing. ( _"Baz! The road! Watch out! Baz! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Watch out for the - Jesus fucking Christ! Baz!"_ ) I can still feel every neuron in my body running on a fever pitch. I can still feel the anger, the uncontrolled kind that is less mean than hopelessly frustrated. I can still feel those pink-ish knuckles cracking through my skull. I can still see my father's head against the sun like a chasm without a bottom. I can still feel the concrete crunching against my spine. I can still feel Simon's breath on my face, hot and wet, carrying words he didn't want to say. I can still feel his eyes on me, in me, through me. 

I can still feel the ache in my cheek.

I press a hand against it, the sting making my legs sway on the top of the staircase. I can barely feel my feet on the floor. One nudge and I'd topple backwards, crack my skull, snap my spine in half on the velvet-carpeted stairs. Wouldn't be the first death in this house. 

I shake my head so hard it’s painful enough to shut my brain down for a second. All I want is a breather. Just a breather. That's all I want. 

But the moment of silence doesn’t last. 

My heart plummets when I see my bedroom door cracked open, warm light leaking across the carpet and lapping at my shoes. I clamp my teeth together so hard my jaw drones. The adrenaline starts rushing in, an incoming high tide of shallow breaths and speedy heartbeats. The bruise on my cheek pounds, as if reliving the burn of the impact over and over again. I know who's waiting for me on the other side of that door. And I know the second I kick it open, reality is going to gobble me whole. I'll be back in my world, a place where there's not enough space to think about someone like Simon. It's too murky down there, the bitter belly of a beast. 

Simon would suffocate.

It takes me three tries to finally count to ten and nudge the door open. I need to breathe but there’s this strange hole in my chest, all the air escaping me too quickly for me to stay afloat. 

He’s sitting on the travel trunk at the foot of my bed, his shoulders pulled down and his spine caved in, hair dull in the lack of lighting. Everything about him undone. As if he stumbled down from his throne, all his might left somewhere far, far away and out of reach. He's staring at the clunky glass in his hands, liquor glowing a sickly brown in the dim light coming my desk lamp. 

This is what he does. He unfastens, gets all sloppy and sad, and he drags himself to our feet, swimming in some delusional haze the color of Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. And he'll say he's sorry. Or he'll say he doesn't know how to be the man this family needs. Or he'll say he hates himself. Or he'll say he loves us. He'll spew bullshit after bullshit, spinning stories like a con man. It's what he does best. And sometimes I think it's the only thing he's capable of. The one and only drive that keeps his heart pumping. 

I'm old enough to know this is not about remorse. This is about a man who's afraid his son might ruin everything by spilling the truth. Fear of defiance. That's all this is. That's all this ever was. He dragged himself all the way here to tear his mouth open and shove pretty things into my brain. Maybe the worst part is he knows I'll take whatever he gives me. 

Because I can't afford not to.  

"I’m not going to ask you where you were," he drawls - and there's something outlandish in the way he talks when he doesn't control his accent, his impeccable articulation, his nobleness and stature. He sounds like something lawless, a culprit, the kind that bashes skulls in with a tire wrench. 

This is who he is when he reaches the bottom of a bottle. This is Malcolm Pitch down on earth, stripped down and inside-out, all his beasts crawling out of their carefully-crafted cages. 

Sometimes I forget he's just as much of a ruin as everyone else. 

"Not going to ask you to forgive me either," he says, sloppy. 

I know these are the same words he probably told Mordelia the second I was out of the house. It's a script. It's a checklist. 

He doesn't look at me. He barely does. 

I shut the door behind me and shuffle farther into my room. But I don't dare stand close enough for him to reach me. I'm afraid I might let him. 

I watch as he wipes a quaking hand across his face, eyes pinned dead-ahead, not blinking, not once. It's strange how his profile always looks so sculpted - corners sliced, edges carved - but in this light, at this hour, he's mutilated. He looks more creature than human, nightmarish, like something that crawled out of a tomb. 

I swallow hard, feel my hands curl into fists. I try to keep them down, but they're itching for it, so ready to snap up and charge. 

He huffs. I can smell the stench from all the way here: alcohol diluting lies.  

"I don't know," he starts, a shaky hand slicking his hair back. I hate how familiar it looks. How familiar it feels. I hate how our habits align. Like father, like son. 

"I don't, Basilton. I don't know how often I've sat on this trunk saying the same goddamned things."

_Bullshit._

"I don't know how to do any of this. I just…I don't. I'm incapable."

_Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you._

The bruise rattles on my face, not a throb anymore - but a full-fledged jackhammer. Pounding and pounding and pounding. 

I look at his hands, at the pink of his knuckles, the ugly bulges. His red ring flashes. My stomach churns. I want to rip that ring off his finger, slide it onto my own, punch him so hard he sees every inch of the fucking galaxy. The thought is a disgusting thing. 

Like father, like son. 

He stands up with a groan, legs so brittle beneath him as he limps towards my windows, fists a curtain and smoothes his fingers over it. In this light, the material looks just as red as his ring. A very special kind of red. The kind you don't forget. The color of a cataclysm. 

"Sometimes." He wheezes through an inhale. "Sometimes I think your mother had every right to do what she did."

His back faces me as I watch him roll his shoulders, hear the crack of his worn out bones. I expect something to snap and convulse, like he'll hunch over and some devilish thing will creep out from under his spine, shed the rest of him like a second skin. 

"What?" I say without wanting to. I jam my tongue between my teeth so hard I taste copper. I hate talking to him when he's like this. I always feel like I'm weak, like I'm giving in to his games, baring my neck in submission. 

"Sometimes I think I hate her for it," he says.

And there's something so distinct about the way his voice travels low. It reminds me of Fiona, that same ominous tone she uses when she talks about her sister. It's as if they know something I don't, their words hiding secrets. It's always secrets. So many secrets. 

"Sometimes I think I hate her for it. More than anything I've ever hated."

_Hate her for what? Fucking dying?_

When he turns around to finally look at me, my heart tramples against my chest. Like a drowning child. 

"And sometimes," he says, "Sometimes I look at you and all I can feel is that fucking hate." 

I swallow, feel my fists drone against my sides, my heart still trampling. He shakes his head, throwing the rest of the liquor down his throat. He coughs, wipes a hand across his face so hard his skin swells red. 

"You should go to bed," he slurs. "You've got school tomorrow."

His words are a snap to this one-sided conversation. It's like the things he just said never happened. Maybe there's this fearful moment of me thinking it was all just in my head, but when he stumbles towards me and grabs my arm, I know it wasn't. 

His skin on my skin. His eyes on me.

I can't stop myself from flinching. My heart's kicking now, screaming. He leans in so close his face is nothing but a mangled blur, deformed, his eyes popping out like two perfect round ditches. There's the strange need to not slip up or trip. I might fall right into them. I might never get back out. 

"What are you going to tell them?" His breath hot on my face. Liquor. Acid. Bullshit. 

I take a ragged breath.

"That I fell," I press out. The bruise on my face pounds. 

_That it was my fault. My mess. That it was all me. You weren't even there. You were far, far away. You didn't lay a hand on me. You never have._

His mouth cracks into a cruel smile. It looks so much like mine. Exactly like mine.

"Good boy," he says. "Good boy…"

I can feel his shaky hand ruffling my hair, patting my head. I'm his pet. 

I hate how it makes me feel when he says such things. Even if I don't want to be like this, even if I hate myself for it so, so, so much - he's got me conditioned.  He says 'Good boy' and it's like there's this switch in my brain and I'm pleased with myself because I made him happy. 

I press a hand against my stomach. I feel like throwing up until my teeth disintegrate. 

 

✕

 

After he leaves, I sneak to Mordelia's room. She's waiting for me, sitting upright in her bed with her stuffed rabbit, Captain Coconut, pressed against her chest. 

She scoots. I slip under her far too tiny sheets. I hold her far too tiny hands. She's so frail when she doesn't wear her fury like battle armor. I keep forgetting she's just a child in need of everything. She's just a bloody child. She is so small. Sometimes I forget how little she can take. 

Mordelia twists to face me, her eyes glassy in the sliver of blue peeking through her curtains. She's the only one of her siblings with grey eyes. Like mine. Like my father's. 

When I was a child, he used to tell me our eyes aren't grey, that they're just colorless, wrung dry and drained. I imagined I'd been born with them just as blue as my mother's. And when she died, life hit my eyes like peroxide stripping away all color in a tiny chemical reaction. The same way it had hit his.

And just like that, our lack of blue was another terrible thing we had in common. 

Like father, like son. 

 

 

**Simon**

I wish I could do something cool when skipping class, like getting high in the locker rooms or having a quickie under the bleachers the way kids do in American high school movies. With all their prepubescent anarchists in cheer skirts and the musical numbers on cafeteria tables. Yanks are loonies.  

I end up in the bathroom, sitting on the floor of the last stall in a pile of Yorkies from the canteen's vending machine. I’ve got Tame Impala to keep me company. That, and the sharpie memoirs scribbled across the stall. The penis is still there, furiously splattered across the mess, anatomically incorrect and permanent, 'SUCK IT SIMON' next to it in big blocky letters, 'Faggot Fuck' above a red arrow pointed at my name. 

I hit the back of my head against the wall so hard my teeth clack. That's what you get for getting caught snogging Harvey Blythe in his parents' closet. Stuff like this is sprawled across every bathroom in school, squished between phone numbers and arrowed hearts and over the top love declarations of one-hour old couples. 

Todgers and 'Suck it Simon'. It's a whole thing thanks to Harvey. He practically told the entire country I drugged him and whipped my cock out, like I'm some evil homo-kidnapper-rapist. 

He's head of the drama club and captain of the school's ultimate frisbee team. Ultimate fucking  _frisbee_. 

If anything, the snogging was so consensual it made him pass out. The cunt.

When Kevin Parker starts singing it feels like he's only going backwards, I think,  _that makes two of us, Kevin_ , and yank my tie from my neck, mush it into a ball and hurl it into the neighbouring stall with a grunt. There's a tiny triumphant splash. Maybe I'll try and flush it down later. Maybe it'll clog up the pipes. Maybe it'll cause a bathroom flood. Maybe I could get the faculty to shut down school for a week because of water stains. Or maybe I should just set this whole place on fire and get it over with. With Harvey in it. Harvey and his team of brain-dead ultimate frisbee playing dildos. 

I catch myself smiling at the unwrapped Yorkie melting between my fingers and stuff it into my mouth. I'm not sure scheming in toilet stalls with a mountain of chocolate is good for my mental health. Maybe Mrs. McKee was right - the school nurse who talks like she time travelled all the way here from some Scottish medieval fortress. ( _"Skippin' classes again, Mr. Saunders? Aye, like a gateway drug. I ken all aboot that slippery slope. Not a bonnie thing! Next up is self-destruction. And satanism. Satanism, Saunders! Black as the Earl of Hell's Waistcoat! Oh, it's all in there, lad. Don't be dafty.)_ I think she was joking. But still. 

I sigh and grab my phone, flip through songs - while I pretend to not care that he still hasn't called me back. It's been a week. Nothing. Radio silence. I've only dared to call him twice, fingers twitching, the phone sticking to my ear from all the nervous-sweats. I didn't even know what I was going to say, nothing but gibberish built up at the bottom of my throat, ready to blurt out and spill over. I don’t remember the last time I cared about not making any sense. But I'm scared now. I’m scared not making any sense might mess it up. And because everything I say fails to make any sense, I might as well not say anything at all. Ever. 

Maybe all I want now is to call him and hear him say my name. Just once. Through the phone. Pretend his mouth is grazing my ear.  

And it wouldn't upset me this much if he hadn't been the one to give me his number in the first place. Not that I'm upset. I'm not allowed to be upset. I don't have the right. It was all my fault. And my hand's. And my brain's. They'd both lost control when I'd needed them to keep it together the most. 

 _Baz_. 

He makes me want too much too fast. I scared him away. I'm so good at that: doing too much, being too much, and then running off because fuck rejection.

I think that makes me a coward. 

I sigh and stare at his name fizzing on my cracked phone screen, short and dark and sharp. 

"Baz." Even when you mumble it,  say it so carefully, so quietly, it never fails to sound like a hiss. A little razor cut on the tip of your tongue. My thumb hovers over his name, skin prickling with the thrill of expecting the letters to crawl up and out and slice me. 

What if I just texted him? 

_Hi? Hello? What's up? I'm so sorry for having tried to kiss you in an abandoned parking lot? I'm so sorry? I'm so sorry for still wanting to?_

_Kiss you, that is. Kiss you all the time. Kiss you so much I forget my name. Kiss you so much I disintegrate._

I can't stop thinking about his mouth. 

"Shit." I let my legs plop down and stretch them out into the neighbouring stall. I wipe my hands across my face, breathe into my palms until my chest spasms. There's this pressure in my head urging me to break something, to throw a vase out of a window or visit a pawnshop with a baseball bat. Everything beneath my skin is on edge. 

_Baz. Baz. Baz._

He raids my headspace when I don't need him in there. He just kicks the door down and barges right in when I'm dealing with everything else. And he does it shirtless and smirking in all his asshole-ish glory. Because that's what he looks like in my head. (I've never seen him shirtless, but I imagine everything beneath his clothes looks like his eyebrows: so symmetrical it's ridiculous.) And his hair's all shiny, swooshing around his head like in those girl's shampoo commercials. And he's wearing jeans. Just jeans. Because he looks fantastic in jeans. Nobody should be allowed to look that fantastic in jeans. 

Thinking about him makes me want to jab a wall. He's a heart attack. He's a knockout. He's a bullet to my brain.

_Baz. Baz. Baz._

The second I start thinking about him, I can't think about anything else. I can't worry about anything else. The second his name crawls into my head, it's over. I'm over. It's the end of time. The Big Bang in reverse. 

_Baz. Baz. Baz._

There's this ache that starts at the bottom of my chest, right between the notch of my rib cage, this little pocket of living things: anger and shame and greed; and then other things too, sticky-sweet things like heartbeats and lips and sweaty palms, nice things like hope - the weird kind that's so strong it's weakness. 

Nobody tells you it can be like this too. It's the whole world at once, all the bad and all the good mushed into one. How do you not go mad? How do you not bash your own skull in to keep it together? 

_Baz. Baz. Baz._

He's this giant chunk of pressure stuck in the space between my eyes. All I want to do is slam my head against a wall to knock him loose. 

"Simon, you in here?" 

I groan when Penny's voice rips through the guitar riff of _Mind_ _Mischief_. I yank my headphones off and listen to her loafers click-clack across the sticky floor in that Penny-like tempo of hers. She's jet-fueled 24/7, courtesy of her caffeine-intake having spiked the second school started. It’s only been a week but I keep expecting her chest to pop from a heart attack. She's trying to keep Micah off her mind. 

I guess I finally know what that's like. 

"Are you here? Simon?"

"No," I mumble.

She grunts. I watch her soft shadow rush towards my stall, her loafers coming into view, black and shiny and so small it's ridiculous. The Bunces have the tiniest feet. China doll feet. Sometimes I think they'll tip over if you nudge them with a finger. 

Penny clears her throat. It's so stately I half-expect her to knock. 

"Open up," she demands. I watch a loafer tap a fast beat against the tiles. Click-clack-click-clack. 

"Simon." 

"This is the boy's bathroom."  

"And this is me not giving a shit. Open up."

I groan. She groans. I groan louder. She knocks. I snort. She kicks the door. I unlock it. 

 _Fine_. 

"Hi," she says, arms crossed, a scowl distorting her face. Her eyes snap down to the Yorkies scattered across the tiles and it must look sad enough for her to let her arms drop, eyebrows scrunching into something worrisome. She nudges her head to the side, stray curls loosening from her bun. It looks like she's balancing a plasma globe on the top of her head. 

"Hey," I say.

She takes a deep breath. "Scoot." It's so quiet. 

I make some space as she crawls onto the floor to sit next to me. She presses her legs against her chest, pulling her checkered skirt over her knees.  

"Hi," she whispers, leaning in closer until our shoulders bump. 

I know she's looking at me. But she's too close for me to want to look back. Friday's are Penny's contact lens days. She's trying to ease the world into it, which is terrifying because sometimes Penelope's eyes are too sharp for you to look at them without a buffer. She'll impale you with a stare. 

And besides, I like her kooky glasses. They make her look a little mystical, a little witchy, like she's got secrets and goblets and spells on her mind. 

"Hey," I say again, occupying my hands with picking at a loose thread dangling from her yellow stockings. (Brockenhurst Upper has the nastiest school colors. Vomit yellow and is-that-mold green.)

Penny grabs a Yorkie from under my knee. 

"What happened?" she asks, unwrapping the bar with careful fingers. She’s still staring. 

"What do you mean what happened?"  

She sighs. I don't have to look at her to know she's rolling her eyes. One big don't-fuck-with-me-Simon eyeball loop. 

"It's the first week of school," she mutters, "and you're already skipping class. Usually takes a month for you to get into it again."

I bite a piece off her Yorkie when her eyes flip to the ceiling. She blurts a startled giggle, her hand snapping up to flick my forehead so hard it stings. 

"Ow." I try to flick her back but she fends me off. "You make me sound like a relapsing delinquent," I mumble as she takes a quiet bite, chews, swallows. 

I twist the thread of her stocking around my finger and watch the blood drain at the tip, skin losing color fast. 

"Is it your dad?" Barely a whisper. I don't even think she's breathing. 

She's so careful, tip-toeing towards a topic I've lost the strength to talk about. 

I know if I look at her now, worry would be the only thing I'd find. That, and a sense of responsibility for a problem that isn't hers to solve. But she cares too much to leave this alone. Sometimess Penny believes she's destined to be my flood wall, my safety net, the only thing that can keep all the bad things away. Like she's standing between me and the world. I know there are days where she thinks I can't do it on my own. It's in the way her fingers twitch before we cross the road or in the way she answers questions that were meant for me. It's in the way she's looking at me now. 

Sometimes I feel terrible for being worried about this much. So much energy going to waste. 

"Doesn't matter."

"So it is your dad," she says, careful but matter-of-factly. 

I rip the thread out of her stocking, place it between my hands and crunch it.

"I wish it was," I mumble. 

I think of our clean house. I think of the home-cooked meals scooped into tupperware, labelled and stacked in the refrigerator. Our uncharacteristically full refrigerator. It took me eighteen years to find out my dad can cook. He's a mystery. 

I've never been good at solving mysteries. 

For a while it's quiet, nothing but the distant muffle of Tame Impala spilling from my headphones. Penny finishes her Yorkie in silence before grabbing my backpack and rummaging for a pen. I watch her draw a comma between 'Suck it' and 'Simon'. She laughs. I smile. 

"Who told you I wasn't in class?" 

"Owen," she says. 

"Fuck Owen." 

"He was just…worried about his science partner?" She waves a flimsy hand. 

I scrunch my face at the thought of Owen giving two shits about anybody but himself. 

Chem is the only class Penny and I don't have together. It's my get-out-of-jail-free card. And if Owen would just keep his monumental mouth shut, maybe I'd actually get away with effectively disappearing. 

"Probably did everything by himself anyway," I say, thinking about how he'd called me a disaster waiting to happen during last year's science fair - before I punched his nose out of place and he dislocated my shoulder. 

"I’m pretty sure he was happy I didn't show. I keep messing everything up anyway," I say. "He doesn't even let me do stuff with like…sodium chloride. That's salt, Penny. That's bloody salt."

"Yeah, fuck Owen." She busts out another giggle. 

"Fuck Owen!"

"To the moon!"

"To the moon." 

I feel Penny's eyes stapled to the side of my face, studying me, looking for something. She grabs my hand, her fingers short and warm. A very girlish hand. A very nice hand. 

I hate how I start thinking about another hand, a bigger one with longer fingers, tougher knuckles, slender, nimble, the kind of hand that can shake me awake with nothing but a graze. The kind of hand that can drive Jags and play violins and send hymns to the stars. The kind of hand that can hold me, make me fall apart while keeping me together. 

I let my head drop to Penny's shoulder, her hair tickling my nose. She presses her ear against my scalp. I imagine she can hear the rumble beneath, my thoughts snapping back and forth and up and down, making pinball-machine-like _dings._

"It's going to be okay," she says, ruffling my curls. And I know she must've heard at least a little. Just enough to know. 

I press my cheek further against her shoulder. She smells the way she always does: kitchen herbs and chocolate and home. 

"Whatever's going on, it's going to get better. Because this is just - " She shakes her head. "It's just temporary," she whispers. "Whatever you're feeling, it's temporary. Just temporary."

"How do you know?" 

"Because everything is."   

_Maybe that's what I'm afraid of._

I close my eyes at the feeling of her fingers carding through my hair.

"Simon?" she breathes. 

"Penny?"

"Don't give up."

"Hm?"

"On finishing," she says. "Just…get through the school year. Please."

"I'm trying." My eyes snap open. I stare at the comma between 'Suck it' and 'Simon', this tiny black blob separating my name from all the bollocks.  

"It's the first week of school and you already skipped chemistry," she says, sounding just as affectionate as she does frustrated. She gives my curls a gentle tug. 

"I'm just really bad at trying?"

I grab a Yorkie and fling it at the sharpie penis. Muttering something under her breath, Penny crawls between me and the stall's wall, her plasma globe bun swaying, shielding my eyes from all the rubbish. She slaps her hands against my cheeks, pulls me so close our noses almost bump. All that's left are her bare eyes slicing through mine with a stare. 

"I promised you I'd get you through the year. And I will, okay? And I'm going to be a real bitch about it, and you're going to try harder, and you're going to hate me, Simon Snow Saunders. You're going to wish you never met me. I'm going to get you through this bloody year. I'll get you to graduation. And then America. I'll get you there too." She grins. Big, bright teeth. "I've got you, okay?" She wobbles my head from side to side. "I've got you. Got you, got you, got you." she whispers. She's aggravating. She's beautiful. 

"I know," I whisper back. "I know." 

I don't know when Penny turned into this. This blazing, brilliant sun. She crept up on this town - hell, she crept up on the whole world - slow and secret, growing, growing, growing, until she just…burst. Penelope Bunce is meant to take over the entire Milky Way galaxy and everything infinite beyond. 

Thinking about Penny's future makes me think about the blurriness of mine. This smudge of something so impaired and incomplete I'll never know what it was meant to be. 

The first week of school has been a constant reminder of this lacking thing in my timeline. Teachers popping up here and there, flinging giant question marks at my face ( _"Doing well I hope, Mr. Saunders? Last year of school! You're excited, I reckon? What are your plans for next year? Any universities in mind? Gap year, perhaps? Do tell, do tell, do tell…"_ ). Classmates rattling down seven year plans the way they'd probably read grocery lists. And everybody's talking about dental laboratory technicians and fleet managers in logistics, psychologists, operating engineers, web developers and CNC machinists…jobs upon jobs I wouldn't know what to do with.

What happened to artists and firefighters and teachers?

I feel stuck. I can't get rid of thinking the adult world works the way it does in picture books, these technicolored, two-dimensional realms where being a milkman is a socially acceptable occupation with a steady income. And I like the milkman in picture books, with his white cap and bow tie and his toothpaste-commercial smile, his whole cardboard-cutout-likeness. He gets to stay in one place. In one town. In one Bermuda Triangle of a zip code. 

If I stay here, like the bloody milkman, I wouldn't have to know a single thing. I could keep being so stuck. The thing is I look around and everybody knows how it's supposed to go, buzzing through this busy circuit I've lost my chance to be a part of. I just can't keep up. I'm a leftover. Maybe I was born the wrong way round and I live in a world that's upside down and backwards.

I've never thought about forcing an end to myself. But I've thought about stopping. Just stopping. Shutting myself out, shutting myself in. Letting the world pass by - everybody moving forward, better, faster, higher - while I stand still. 

If I were the milkman, I wouldn't have to think about tomorrows. I wouldn't have to think about an afterwards to each temporary now. 

But that's the way time works. There's an after to everything: to this, to growing up, to moving on, to trying to kiss sad boys in parking lots.  

 

 

 **Baz**  

"Christ, Niall. What the hell?" Dev's voice bellows through the violent volume of O'Neil's on a Friday night. 

Niall's curled over the counter of the bar, downing his pint like he's trying to suffocate his brain before killing it off with some powder up his nose and a puff of his millionth cigarette. He's on a mission to self-destruct by the time the sun comes up. 

I watch the beer dribble out of the corners of his mouth, down the rills of his spindly neck, his Adam's apple bobbing. He slams the pint onto the counter.

"Boom!" he shouts. 

I feel like a referee should rip one of his arms into the air as his mouth slinks into a grin, crazed and ferocious, pupils blown like cavities. When Niall's on a roll, he turns into that mental cat from Alice in Wonderland, all mystery, mockery, teeth.  

I don't even want to know what he took before we picked him up. Dev keeps saying radioactive space-goop. But that's his answer to everything. 

Dev busts out one of his thunder-cackles that never fail to make the earth shake, and he slaps a big hand onto Niall's back, huffing, "Champ."

"Why, thank you." Niall twirls a hand before snatching my cigarette out of my mouth and popping it into his own, cheeks hollowing, skeletal. He cocks his head to the side, attention strained against a spot behind my shoulder. 

"Hm!" He yanks his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, his hand sanitizer slipping out and dropping to the floor ( _Lemon Zest - Double the Effect_ ). "My guy's here. I'll be back with some base."

"Wouldn't mix coke with space-goop," Dev mumbles from where he's leaning over the bar, nibbling at the rim of an empty shot glass. 

"My body is a temple." Niall grins before slinking into the crowd, this strange mass of dark and oily and loud. 

On Friday nights, O'Neil's turns into a pit of pissed school kids, sweaty-high and electric, getting into fist fights on the street, snorting lines in the bathroom stalls. You can smell the shotgun kisses the second you bust through the door: girls flashing sticky thighs; boys with heat between their pelvic bones. It's a huffing, puffing factory of hormones. Complete chemical madness. 

Niall comes back, skittering through the crowd and shoving a small packet of powder into the back of his jeans. There's a sneaky look on his face. 

"Just a heads up, Dev. Your dominatrix is about to pay us a visit." He laughs. All sharp teeth. 

Dev almost falls off his chair when a set of neon pink fingernails claw across his chest, sharp and weaponized. Minty's head pops up behind his shoulder. She bites his neck. Dev looks like he might shit himself. 

"Well, hello there, boys." Nothing but a purr. 

 _Well, hello there boys_. Like this is the beginning to some cheap 90's orgy porno. 

"Hi, Ditsy." Niall waves his cigarette. 

"It's still Minty, Nigel."

"It's still Niall, Ditsy."

She gives him a grin almost as sharp as his, but it doesn't take long until she's directing it towards Dev - who looks like he lost his brain somewhere between her hands on his chest and her teeth on his neck. 

"Close your eyes and open your mouth," Minty whispers, all forced smokey. 

I roll my eyes so hard my face aches. 

"Fuck. Can't you guys be nasty somewhere else…" Niall throws a coaster at Dev's forehead. The big guy's brain-dead. He probably didn't even feel it. 

"Come on, muffin," Minty says with that phone-sex-operator voice. 

Niall chokes. " _Muffin_ ," he mouths. 

Dev doesn't have enough time to knock Niall off his chair before Minty pops a pill into his mouth. She coos as if she's tending to a baby bird. Which is ridiculous, because Dev's built like a fucking beast, a monument, a mountain-like monster. 

"Good boy," Minty says, voice going gravelly low. She's wormed her way onto his lap, and she's staring at us with those low-lidded eyes, glazed over and sleepy.

The thing about Minty is she always looks like just woke up from some wet dream about you - two seconds short from an orgasm and hungry out of her mind. It's no wonder she's got Dev wrapped around all of her pretty painted fingers. 

It's a strange thing…seeing Dev with a girl for longer than one night. He goes through them the way he goes through his chinos: wears them once, gets them dirty, rips them apart, throws them out, buys a new pair. No washing. No repeating.

Niall says Minty's tits are magic. I say Minty's a 21st-century succubus. But what do we know. Maybe she's the one to finally pin him down. 

"Anybody else want some molly?" Minty asks from where she's tangled around Dev like silly string. 

"Are you gonna have to sit on my lap for that too?" Niall mumbles around his cigarette. 

Dev shoots him a glare, but it's a diluted thing, anger watered down by the E hitting his bloodstream. I think he might've forgotten his own name. 

Minty grins, bleached teeth outshining her peroxide hair. It's a silent challenge. I think she knows exactly what sets Dev off the most. Even as a kid, sharing has never been one of his strong suits.

Niall fiddles with his cigarette before cocking his head to the side, his mouth slinking into something miniscule. He almost looks weary. 

Niall never looks weary. 

"So…where'd you leave Agatha?" he mumbles.

Minty flinches. 

"Ew. Nigel. No. Never."

"What are you going on about? I was just - "

"It's never going to happen," she huffs, pursing her lips. "Stay away from her. She's doing just fine without you. Look." She nudges her head towards the pinball machines.

Agatha looks strange in a place like this, too tame, unspoiled and untainted. So pristine. She's talking to some guy who looks like he was chiseled straight out of 18th-century etiquette (the type that side combs his hair out of principle).

"Christ, he looks like he's got a cock up his arse," Niall grumbles. 

"That's _Lawrence Ross_." Minty breathes his name like a prayer. "His mum was, like, Miss Japan or something. And he's captain of the football team. _And_ the debate team. And he plays polo. Polo, Nigel. _Polo_. He knows _horses_."

"I know horses…"

"Mhm. I'm sure you do, sweetheart." She makes a show of rolling her eyes out of her pretty head. 

Niall grips the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles go white.

"Come on, Dev-Dev," Minty chirps, jumping off his lap, her flimsy skirt dancing. "Let's do something fun."  

Dev grumbles incoherently before grabbing her hand and dragging her through the crowd like some possessive caveman. It's making her squeal so loud my spine crunches. 

"Dev!" Niall shouts after them, frantically waving his cigarette through the air. "What about the base? Where the hell are you going?"

"The back of my car," Dev shouts as he pushes his way towards the door. Minty flashes a wicked smile, the kind that reminds me of spoiled brats getting what they want.

"Girls," Niall groans, throwing a coaster into the crowd. "They ruin everything."

He juts his bottom lip out before slamming his head onto the counter. He's probably too drunk to care about the germs. That, and he wiped the deck down with a Kleenex two hours ago. 

Niall and girls are two incompatible species from opposite corners of the galaxy. 

"Polo. Polo, man. Fuck horses. They're so fucking - " He groans. "I'm going to die alone. My chopper's gonna shrivel."

"Niall. Stop being dramatic. Your penis will be fine." 

He moans. 

"It's just gonna, like - fall off by the time I turn thirty. And then I'll be alone. And cock-less."

I roll my eyes. He bares his teeth. Like an animal. Like something that's got too much bite to know how to talk. 

"Agatha? Really?" I say, dribbling my fingers across the sticky counter. 

Niall shakes his head, eyebrows scrunched. 

"Stop," he grunts. "Don't even. I'll knock you right off that chair."

He leans back, his twig-like fingers rubbing into his scalp. There's something strange in the way he's looking at me now. It's too smudgy for me to pinpoint anything. The back of my neck prickles as his eyes dart across my face. Until they stay locked on my cheek, the one that's harboring an ugly nebula.  

"Looks nasty," he mumbles. 

It's almost uncomfortable hearing Niall like this, careful and scared. It makes him look like less. 

"What?" I breathe, pretending I don't know what he's talking about. But I jerk my head to the side to make sure my hair covers the bruise. I hope it looks like a trick of the light. 

Niall points at my cheek. I can feel it, his nail against my skin like a scratch.

The thing about bruises is there are the kinds that happen by accident, and then there are the kinds that happen on purpose. From one moment to the other - _bang -_ and suddenly there's no skin left, just bone and muscle, an inside-out spot the size of a fist. Looking at it is pressure. Pointing at it is a scratch. Touching it is a punch all over again. 

"It's already going green…I give it one more week. Maybe one and a half," Niall says, as if he _knows_. 

Neither him nor Dev have mentioned it since I told them I fell down the stairs. And they nodded like they believed me. They nodded because that's the only thing there is to do. We don't talk about these things. There's a fine line between having fun together and swapping secrets. 

My father used to say friends make the worst enemies. They get close enough to hit you where it hurts. So you make business partners. You make acquaintances, collaborators, associates. Not friends. Never friends. 

( _"Friendship, Basilton, is what turns wolves into sheep. And no one wants to be a sheep, isn't that right boy? Isn't that right?"_ )

I swallow, break my eyes away from his. I listen to his fingers tap a frantic rhythm against the edge of the counter. He's itching to say something. Whatever it is, I don't want him to say it. I don't want him to say anything at all. 

That's the way this goes. 

"Drop it, Niall."

_No one wants to be a sheep._

He grunts and kicks my chair so hard I almost topple over. 

"Right," he snarls. "Right. Whatever you say, captain." 

And just like that, his mask is back on, skull distorted by a spindly grin, teeth sharp and big. He shakes his head once, a shudder fast enough to make it look like he's trying to hurl something off. Or out. 

The next thing I know he's waving that packet of white powder around, cocking an eyebrow in a silent question mark. I shake my head. 

"Go to town," I say. 

"Slag," he huffs, kicking my chair again.

He heads towards the bathroom before I have enough time to tell him to stay out of trouble. Unlike girls, coke and Niall are so compatible it's toxic. It feeds him, makes him ten times bigger, makes that grin stick like super glue. It's becoming a problem. But I'm not the one to tell him that, just like he's not the one to ask me about my bruises. That's the way this works. Maybe we've never cared enough to complain. 

I keep wondering how far this has to go until one of us snaps. Until _I_ snap. 

I play around with my phone for a while, but the screen makes my eyes water and I end up watching Agatha and Side Comb glowing through the crowd in all their spotlessness. I don't know if I'm just bored enough to be curious, or if there's something about her that's caught my eye. The longer I look, the more she starts to fizz and fade, the rings under her eyes darkening, cheeks hollow, mouth a pale crack. There's something colouring her blue. Maybe it's in the way she keeps staring at the door, as if she's anxious to leave - or anxious for someone to finally come in.  

"Fight in the loo!" someone shouts so loud I snap out of it. 

Agatha's gone, swallowed by a crowd of kids yelling about blokes and fists and bathrooms, giddy, like they were just waiting for it to happen. 

"Come on, Niall," I hiss, making my way towards the bathrooms, elbows splitting the crowd apart as I rush through the narrow hallway out back. The men's bathroom sign pulses a bright red, the door beneath it crookedly hanging from a hinge. 

"Niall!" I shout, squeezing through a group of blokes with their phones out, already shouting things that are too slurred for me to understand. Crows ready to pick at a carcass. 

"What the fuck did you call her?" Niall's voice like a razor. "No, say it again, you sodding -" 

Punch. Grunt. Shatter.

Niall is dragging a boy by his collar, knuckles red, eyes ripped open. Completely fucking manic. 

He tramples in Niall's grip, gurgling things from where he's wedged in a savage headlock. The boy's got St. Arlingtons stamped across his forehead, all boat shoes and salmon-colored shorts and slicked hair. But there's nothing refined about him here. There's nothing refined about any of us here. We look lost. We look wrong.  

I start running down reasons for how Niall snapped, and it keeps coming down to something ridiculous, like how this bloke might've stolen Niall's hand sanitizer or taken the last paper towel or used up all the soap or - 

"Call Agatha a slut one more fucking time, and I will rip your eyeballs out."

Or maybe he insulted Niall's make believe girlfriend. 

He's looming over the boy now, one fist raised and ready to smash. The kid's cheeks are bursting red, his hands gripping into Niall's forearm. He's choking. He's bloody choking. 

"Niall!" His name punching out of my throat. 

I hear the boys behind me howl savage things. 

"Niall!" I shout again. "He's not worth it."

It's like I'm in a cage with a wild animal and its prey, hands raised in an attempt to show him I mean no harm. The boy thrashes, a grumble of words spilling out of his throat as he kicks Niall in the shin, freeing himself and toppling forward. He rolls across the floor until he's beneath the series of rusty sinks, coughing on his hands and knees, saliva dribbling down his chin. He wipes it off with the back of his hand. 

"She's a slag." He spits onto the floor. "Scrubber! Sucked off half the school tonight."

Niall charges towards him.

"What the bloody hell did I just tell you." His leg clicking back, foot spiked and catapulting into the kid's stomach. 

Another cough. Another gurgle. 

Niall's got him by the collar of his polo shirt. He yanks him up, the back of the boy's head hitting the sink as Niall thrusts him into the nearest wall, pinning him against it, both of them growling like wolves. 

"Niall!" I bolt towards him, squeeze myself into the little space between them until I'm face to face with those manic cavity-eyes. 

"He's scum. He's _scum_! Let it go!" I hiss so hard it's just spit. I can smell the electricity on him, the smoke and the sweat, bad things I used to feed on.

I don't know what I'm doing. And I don't know what to do next. I don't even know why I'm here, holding him back and stopping him. I've never been the one to care.

_Maybe I'm already a sheep._

Niall tries to spike past me, but I shove him back. Once. Twice. Until we're almost at the door. He's a rabid animal trying to claw its way out - but I won't let him. 

"Baz, behind you! He's - " 

I choke at the feeling of a hand around my neck - steel-sharp, vice-tight - yanking me down to my knees. I tumble forward, hands slapping against the floor, the murky imprints of shoes sticky against my skin. I start kicking, thrashing, start snarling. I feel something crack against my heel. The sound flips my brain straight to panic mode. Something in my chest goes click-clack-bang, like a bullet ripping through my insides, setting off the heat and the mad, this familiar rage that's knocking my knuckles down one by one, working its way to my fingertips.

And I know this feeling. And I know what it does. And all I can think about are my hands around the Jag's steering wheel and Simon shouting my name from the passenger seat.  

A fist plows through my side, again and again, my ribs vibrating through the aftershocks. I cough. I kick. A blow to the back of my head, face grinding into the floor. I start wheezing, my hand pressed against wherever it hurts. There's a loud howl coming from above. My head spins in the tightest circles. I feel like gripping. I feel like holding on. But all I can do is pinch my eyes closed so hard I see white. 

Niall drags him off me. I twist around to look at him. And when I do, my fists are so ready to plow right through that face, over and over again, until I'm numb, until my chest goes quiet. 

The boy snaps back, kicking Niall so hard he stumbles against the sinks with a tortured howl. A mirror shatters, shards breaking off like icicles, my reflection flashing quickly, staring right at me. I don't look like myself. I look older and meaner and so fucking vile. I look just like him.

_Like father, like son._

Another fist on my ribs.  

_Like father, like son._

Another jab on my temple. 

_But I am not my father._

Niall groans as he stumbles onto his feet. He charges towards the body above me, ripping it off, those fists leaving my skin. Unlatched parasites. Niall's got his arms hooked under the boy's shoulders. 

"Hit him!" he growls, jiggling the kid forward like a puppet. "Hit him, Baz." Sweat-drenched and noxious.

It's enough to coax the mean straight out of the pits of my stomach. I can feel it in my fists, in my throat, in my skull. The world blurs and all I can see is that foreign, red-blotched face and that chin slick with saliva.  

"What the fuck are you waiting for! _Hit him_!" Niall yells. 

I shake my head. It's filled with nails. Every twitch feels like I'm being spiked from the inside-out. I pinch my eyes closed.

_I'm not my father. I'm not my father. I'm not my father._

_I will not hurt him._

"Let him go," I cough, my nose dripping copper and red.

"What?" Niall spits. 

I watch the blood pitter-patter onto the smudged floor below. I wobble onto my feet, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my jacket.  

"Niall," I say, voice quaking just as hard as my fists. "I said let him go. Now." 

Niall swallows, the bob so thick it's like there's something stuck throbbing in his throat. I can see the heat on his face, this sticky layer of rage. He groans. Once. Loud. The world shakes. And then he lets him go. The boy topples forward. I grab him, hold his wet jaw with a hand, pressure so hard I can feel the grind beneath my fingers. His eyes are sinkholes up close. 

There's this familiar pressure inside of my rib cage, expanding like a balloon ready to burst. It's mean Baz bubbling up. It's the thrill of him. He's pushing up against my skin. He wants to rip his way out. 

I won't let him.

 _I am not my father._  

"Walk away - or I will gut you like a fucking pig." I barely say it. I breathe it. Make it feel like all the punches I've been swallowing down. 

 

✕

 

Half of the pub gets kicked out before it can get any further. Bee the Barman is a savage when it comes to fights. I know he's got a shotgun behind the counter. Like he thinks this is the Wild West. But at least he's never the one to call the cops.  

I make sure to drag Niall to my car before he gets any more stupid ideas. He's still twitching, still hungry for adrenaline and fists. And he's talking. He's talking so much, words gushing out that don't make sense - and then those that do. 

"You think you're the only one?" he finally says, once we're on the road and he's sprawled across the backseats. "Well, fuck you."

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. I don't even know where I'm going. I'm throbbing. That's it. All of me is one painful pulse. 

"You don't have to lie to me," he slurs. "I know who did that to you. I know. I know who did that…"

Our eyes meet in the rear-view mirror. One of his skinny hands is pressed against his cheek as if he's keeping something safe, out of sight, out of mind. I stop my hand from slapping against my own. The one that hurts. 

"It's this place," he whispers. "It does bad things to people." 

I flinch, closing my eyes for a second, bracing for something to hit me all over again.

_Maybe I'm already a sheep. Maybe I already care too much._

"You know what, just drive me to Dev's. He gave me the key to the guest house." Niall curls up against the window. "I'm not going home," he mumbles into the glass, fogging it up in the blue dark. "I'm not going back there." 

I listen as he raps his knuckles against the window in a lethargic heartbeat. And he says, "Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em. Fuck this hell hole of a town."

 

 ✕

 

I drive up to the small grey house in the small grey neighbourhood at the edge of town. I end up staring at the second story window above the driveway, at the blue-checkered curtains. He's probably sleeping. 

Maybe this is going to be my thing: ending up at his doorstep without ever intending to; needing to see his stupid fucking face. His flush-freckled face. His irritatingly lovely face. His face. 

I kill the engine.

"Come on…" I groan, knocking my forehead against the steering wheel until I'm raw and aching. I can still feel those knuckles on me. I wonder if I look like a human meteorite, skull covered in craters. 

I wince - _fuck it, fuck it, fuck it_ \- and stumble out of the car, up the grey driveway, up the grey flight of stairs leading to the grey porch. I stare at the grey door in hopes it'll open up if I just want it bad enough. 

"Come on," I breathe. "Come on."

I lick my lips, yank a hand through my hair so hard I groan. I punch the door bell. 

My brain starts trembling at the thought of what I'm going to say when he opens the door. It's in the middle of the night and I'm shaking and swollen and punched-through, blood on my shoes, smoke in my hair. I'm a disaster. 

I should've brought him some flowers. Or food. I should've at least brought him food.  

Guilt starts creeping up the back of my neck, real as a living, breathing thing. For a whole week, I've been putting him on hold as if he's just some issue I have the right to ignore. Like it's okay to treat someone I care about this way. There must be something horribly wrong with me. There must be a piece inside of me that's misplaced or malfunctioning or bad, just plain bad, because I'm turning on my heels, ready to jump back into my car and pretend all of this never happened. 

I'm stumbling down the porch, when I hear the door open. I turn around. I swallow. Hard.

I don't know how someone could look so lived in. Comfy and warm and completely undemanding. He's standing there in his giant sweater and his stupid socks, hair mussed into a catastrophe. It's like I've caught him at a moment I wasn't supposed to, a moment where he's still private and tousled, not ready to be seen. He's the warmest thing, the softest.

And I wanted to run away from that. And I think I still do. There's something horribly, horribly wrong with me. 

"Hi," I blurt, staring at Simon and his not-grey-ness. He's a technicolor fuzz in a silent film. 

"What the fuck." His eyes snap open, sleep jolting off his skin. And then he's tumbling towards me, hands gripping my jaw and tilting my head back and forth. 

"Bloody hell."

"I - "

"Did you fall into a woodchipper?" His eyes flicking back and forth, frantic. I've never seen him like this. I don't know if he's angry or vexed or both. I can't concentrate. I can't think. He's so, so close. I'm already losing it. He smells like pillowcases and toothpaste, and I'm already losing it. 

"Who? Hm? Who! Who was it?" His fingers toughen on my jaw. He's breathing so fast, this crazed tempo I can't keep up with. "Was it - like the last time? On Sunday? Was it the same - "

"Simon, no. Look, it wasn't - " I grab his forearms. He's so hot against my fingers.

I shake my head. I swallow. I say, "No. Just…it was just some stupid fight."

"You smell like O'Neil's." He crunches his face. "Are you drunk?"

"No! I'm - No. I just got into a small - " I can't stop shaking my head. I imagine my brain sloshes back and forth, swimming through the aftershocks. "It was a small confrontation. That's it. Just a small confrontation."

I'm dizzy. I've lost my legs. I let him go. A crack to my atmosphere.  

"A small _confrontation_?" Simon's eyes burst. "Your nose is - " He flaps his hands around. "Bleeding! You're bleeding! How do you keep getting punched? You! You of all people! What the bloody hell are you doing? What is wrong with you?" 

He grabs my wrist, and the next thing I know he's dragging me into his house, mumbling swears, probably scolding me like some cross mother. He's talking too fast for me to keep up. I'm so heavy, sinking. I'm nothing but a bundle of loose-punched limbs. 

Simon hauls me up a narrow staircase, everything gloomy-grey and empty, indifferent almost. Nothing in this house looks lived in.

He leads me to a little bathroom, switching the light on with an elbow. 

"Sit," he demands and points at the fluffy green toilet seat cover. I give it a quizzical look. It's a ghastly color. Just as ghastly as the cow-patterned shower curtains. 

"Christ, Baz, sit down!" 

I do. 

He's fuming, a red heat blotched across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He's crouched on the floor, rummaging through the cabinet under the sink. Still swearing. Still scolding. I flinch when he hits the back of his head on the rusty trap. More swearing. More scolding. 

He fumbles out a first aid kit and slides it towards me. It skitters against my feet. I stare at the little blotches on the tips of my shoes, perfectly round and red and thick. I try to wipe them off. But they're dried. Crusted. My stomach churns. 

"What about your dad?" I look up at the ceiling light, the bulb flickering on and off, an eerie kind of peek-a-boo. 

"Not home," he mumbles. 

"When is he - "

"Don't know. Tomorrow. Maybe."

"Simon, look, you don't have to - "

"Just let me, okay? Please, just let me." He gives me a look that makes my chest throb. 

I bite the inside of my cheek as he flips the kit open, all the tools haphazardly thrown in: scissors, tweezers, empty ointment packets, ripped gauze and scattered bandages…

It looks like it's been used more often than any first aid kit should ever be used. 

He kicks my feet apart and stands between my legs. I try my best to look up at him. His head shields my eyes from the flickering lightbulb, face encompassed by all that space dust. He curls my hair behind my ears, a far too gentle gesture for someone like Simon. I can feel my heart crawl up my chest, my throat. I can feel it throb in my mouth. 

When Simon starts tending to my face, he's so much more careful than I'd ever expected him to be, fingers light, barely there, sliding, tip-toeing across my skin. He's so quick, washing out the scrapes and dabbing them clean with practiced ease. 

I imagine he's wiping those past few hours away. And the hours before those. And the ones before those. He's touching me spotless, faultless. He's touching me whole again. 

"Does this hurt?" he whispers, his hand around my chin. 

"No." It's nothing but a croak. I swallow, feel my heart bob down my throat. I try again, say, "No. No. Doesn't hurt." 

He nods, eyes flicking down to my mouth. I shudder at the feeling of his breath sweeping across my face, trickling, pooling in my hollows. I think I like him like this the most, so close and unaware. He's all thickly defined from a distance, but up close, he's so much softer. Up close, he comes strangely undone. He's all calm touches, warm lines. I want to trace his skin with my eyes closed. Read him like braille.  

"Okay. All good," he says so carefully it sounds shy. 

His hands are gone. I'm oddly cold without them, oddly numb. I shift, muscles groaning so loud I take a ragged breath. I press a hand against my ribs, feel the burn, the living heat that won't stop kicking.

"Does it hurt?" 

"No," I say. 

He flashes me a stern look. 

"A little," I breathe. 

"Take your jacket off."

When I don't respond, he does it himself, his fingers urgent but careful, and before I know it they crawl under my T-shirt and onto my skin. I jerk, the back of my head slamming into the wall. 

"What are you - "

"Checking for bone bruises…fractured ribs," he mumbles, eyes fixated on my hiked up shirt. "Don't move."

"How do you know how to -"

"Been in enough fights to know how."

I can feel his hands roaming my rib cage, warm and tough, tracing along the bones, the seams, pressing into indents. I'm trembling. I'm done for. My heart is losing it, squirming against my chest, bobbing up and down like it's riding out an adrenaline high. I'm so scared he can feel it. My very first cardiac arrest. 

I wince. 

"Shit, did that hurt?" His head snaps up, stare so firm my head knocks against the wall again.

Something inside of me makes a painful stutter.  

"No," I press out. "No."

He nods. 

"Nothing's busted. But, like…you're probably gonna have some pretty sick bruises." His hands pull back, knuckles grazing my stomach as he pulls my T-shirt back down. I punch out a shaky breath, hating myself for letting it be so loud. So obvious. 

"You're really good…" I breathe. Simon blinks, dazed. "I mean, at this." I cock my head towards the first aid kit. "At this kind of - " I swallow. "Stuff." 

He laughs. Jittery. He clears his throat, eyes roaming my stomach. I hold my breath. 

"When I get into trouble," he says, "I usually patch myself up. It's easier. Cheaper."

I look back at the rattled kit. I wonder what kind of trouble someone like Simon gets into. I stare at the jagged scar above his right ear. 

He starts to fiddle with the seam of my trousers, a small smile creeping onto his face. 

"I used to - " He chuckles, eyes strained against his fingers working their way into my jeans. "I used to have this giant collection of band-aids when I was a kid, and I'd, like, carry it around in my backpack, and I'd patch Penny up when she hurt herself. Which she always did, because she was such a bloody daredevil. Always had to climb the highest, kick the hardest. Always ended up with bleeding knees…or elbows…or everything, you know, from head to toe and stuff," he says. 

I wonder if he means Penelope, the red headed girl who used to tutor Dev. A begrudging feeling bubbles up at the thought of her having known Simon since he was a kid. That's years upon years upon years. That's more than a decade. That might as well be a lifetime. 

"And I'd have my band-aids," Simon whispers, lost in thought. "I'd always have my band-aids…" He keeps tugging at my jeans, a child fiddling for attention. His mouth punches out a grin. 

"Actually, I might have - " He quirks around, crawling to the overflowing laundry basket in the corner, rummaging through it until he finds a pair of ripped jeans. Two little band-aids sail to the floor, when turns the pockets inside out.

He hands them to me with a sheepish smile, innocent almost, as if he were a kid giving me a sand cake and expecting me to eat it. They're the kind of band-aids a kindergarten nurse would patch you up with, colorful and printed. 

"Just in case," Simon says. He's still smiling that small, tentative smile that makes his ears quirk and his cheeks bunch. It makes me want to throw him over my shoulder and steal him away, keep that smile all to myself.

"So," I clear my throat, "Penny, she's your…"

"Penelope. My friend. You know her. She's the, uh," he scratches the back of his head, "the girl from the church. You know…from that night."

"The one I called a - " _Whore_. 

"Yeah. That one." Simon swallows. And there's something in the way he's looking at me now that makes me feel so ashamed. For everything. Simon looking at me like this makes me want to jump into a time machine and kick my past-self into a ditch.

"I'm sorry," I say. I don't know how I'm capable of making an apology sound like an insult. 

He grunts. 

"You should be apologizing to her, not to me," he says, stuffing the utensils back into the first aid kit. He has to sit on it for it to close.

"And she's not, by the way," he says as he throws the kit back into the cupboard, bumping his head on the trap again. He swears.

"She's far from it. Penny's…an Amazonian war witch with a brain bigger than, like, earth." He spreads his arms above his head like he's holding up an invisible exercise ball. "She's more than this place deserves." 

He blasts out a breath, arms falling as he jerks his chin up and puffs his chest out. It's as if he's ready to punch anybody down who doesn't agree with him, like he'll maul them all over and stuff those words into their brains by force. He looks so sure, almost dutiful, devoted.

( _"Friendship, Basilton, is what turns wolves into sheep."_ )

But what is this, then? What is this steadfast, resolute thing that's puffing Simon's chest out, curling his shoulders back? 

I swallow and stare at the band-aids in my twitching hands. 

"Look, Simon." I inhale, vision blurring. "I'm sorry. Christ. For so many things." I look up at the ceiling and groan. "I have the dexterity to act like...like an - "

"Apocalyptic fuck?" 

He's back between my legs, back to tugging at my jeans like a child. I nod. 

"I don't think it's something I'll ever get rid of."

Simon snorts, bobbing his head from side to side and huffing, "Yeah. Tyrannus suddenly helping old ladies cross the road would be bloody bonkers."

I cock an eyebrow. "I do, actually."

He slaps my calf. It punches my stomach up to my brain.

"Sod off." And when he crinkles his stupid freckled nose, it yanks my stomach back down so fast I think I might tip over. Fall right into him. 

"I don't mind," he says. "I think I've built a tolerance to asshats."

He laughs, shaking his head, curls bobbing around like loose corkscrews. And, bloody hell, he's so pretty looking away might crack me open. I wait, watch him patiently until his laughter eases into a quiet smile. His shoulders quirk up one last time, and I say, "I'm sorry."

I whisper it. I breathe it. If I say it any louder, he'll know the truth. He'll know I'm so much more than just sorry.

His smile smoothes out until it's gone. He shakes his head.

"Baz, stop. It's okay."

I try to shake my head in time with his, slow and lolling.

"For not calling you back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not calling you back." I think of his name lighting up my phone in the middle of the night. I think of me just staring at it, thinking of him lying in bed waiting for me to pick up. I think of his name disappearing and me staring at the home screen, hoping he'll call again, hoping he'll wait for me to pick up.  

I huff, head still swaying from side to side. Simon is so still. He's never so still. 

"I'm sorry," I say again, "for everything that happened in the parking lot. And for everything before that. And for everything after that. And I'm sorry. I was just…" I crumple my hands into fists, but I stop half-way, thankful I didn't crush the band-aids. I don't want to ruin the band-aids. 

"I was…" I start again, but it won't make any sense. "I don't know what I was." I stop shaking my head. "I was something…something I don't like to be at all."

"You don't have to - "

"No, I do."

"No, you - " He inhales sharply, his fingers back to tugging at my jeans. "I'm sorry, too."

"Don't." I look up. He doesn't. "Simon, don't."

He tugs at my jeans so hard I jerk forward. And when he looks up, the world goes quiet. He's so still and so sad, and his face wasn't made for still and sad. His face was made for a crinkled nose and a stupid smile too big for his head, too big for this planet. 

"Because I never meant to. I never meant to and I - "

"Simon…"

He closes his eyes, pained. 

"Shit." He lets his forehead drop to my knee, his hands curling around my ankles. Holding on. "I'm so bad at this," he groans. "I'm really, really bad at this. I don't have a single clue. I don't know how to do any of - " He snaps back up, hands letting me go and frantically gesturing at the space between us. "This. Whatever the fuck this is. I don't know! And it makes me so bloody - " He groans again, so loud, like he's hurting. "I'm no good, okay? I'm no good. One moment I want to punch you in the face, and the next I…I - " He swallows. He looks at my mouth. He looks away. 

My heart is back in my throat. 

"I don't know how to do any of this," he says to the floor. 

My hand is in the air before I even realize it  - my fingers so close to his curls - one more inch and I could dig them in, rake them through his hair, touch his head, pull him close. 

"And you think I do?" I say. 

His head snaps up. I force my hand back down onto my lap. I feel like sitting on it so it doesn't get me into any trouble. 

Simon's jaw clacks until it's hanging loose. He inches back. I inch forward. I'm in orbit. 

"Fuck you...You're the one who snoggs blokes in your driveway."

"What?" I swallow. I blink.

 _Phillip_. _He's talking about Phillip. Fucking Phillip._

"Simon, that's different. That's different. It's different. It's not -"

"Not what?" His eyes snap back and forth, from my eyes to my cheeks to my mouth and back. 

 _Phillip_. 

He's this itch on my back that I can't reach. He's this blotch in the atmosphere. He has no right to be here. In this part of town. In this house. In this bathroom. In this conversation. In this little space between Simon and me. 

"He's - We just - I mean, we used to…It's nothing anymore. It's nothing. We just - It was just - " I swallow, fingers twitching, face heating up. Inside-out combustion. 

Simon blinks. He looks away, ears going red. 

I shift at the uncomfortable feeling of being this honest. I want to tell him so much more. I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him I don't have a single clue, either. But I don't know if I could find enough words to tell him. Someone knocked a hole into my brain. Everything that makes sense is leaking out. I'm incoherent. I'm smudging. 

"Simon, look. I've never - Something like this…I've never - " _I like this. I really, really like this. But sometimes I don't and I want it to go away. And then I don't. But I do. And I don't._ "It's complicated. It's never - I just never really know. It's nerve-racking. You're nerve-racking. And frustrating. And aggravating. And I can't stop thinking about - "

_You. All of you. Every fucking inch of you. You, you, you._

I yank his hands into mine, my rib cage screaming. He's looking right at me, eyes wide and blue and full of the world.

"I don't know how this is supposed to go, either," I say. 

And he says nothing back. And that's okay. We're just holding each other's hands because maybe there's nothing left for us to say. 

I tip over, my forehead rolling against his. He lets me. He doesn't slip away. I stare at his mouth, the fullness of it, the softness. Girlish. I watch it crack open, breath wet. Hitching. Stuttering. And this is so much slower, so much more quiet. This I could handle. I could make this fit just fine. This soft, endearing little thing. 

But I know it can't always be this way. I think madness goes hand in hand with something so sweet. 

"Baz?"

"Simon?"

"Just stop getting into stupid stuff," he says. "Please." 

Simon saying please is an anomaly. I feel like plucking it off his tongue and tucking it away for safe keeping. 

"Shouldn't I be the one to say that?"

"Sod off…You're the one who keeps getting punched." 

My stomach twists. I realize he might be looking at my mouth too. I realize I forgot to breathe. 

"Why are you the one who gets hurt?" he whispers. "It's all backwards…It shouldn't be that way."

"How is it supposed to be?"

"Different."

"Maybe," I breathe, nodding, my hair grinding against his. "Maybe." 

I kiss his forehead. I feel like I can get away with something so silly just this once. 

I want to kiss his forehead every single day. Multiple times. A million. A trillion. Simon's forehead is meant to be kissed. It's like throwing a coin into a fountain. It's like watching a shooting star. 

Kiss his forehead - make a wish. 

"We should - " Simon stumbles back, the absence of him making my skin sting. "You should…eat something." His voice cracks, raspy.

All I can think is, _I did that. I bloody did that._

"Not hungry," I mumble. I'm hazy. I can still feel his skin on my mouth. Smooth. Warm.

I didn't get to make a wish.

"Okay." He swallows, looking at the floor. "Stay." His eyes snap up, hit mine, click into place with a downbeat.

"Stay," he says again, softer this time, sweeter. "Just stay. Here. Stay." 

_Stay, stay, stay._

It's the prettiest hex. 

Simon wants me to _stay_. 

"Just for the night. I mean, you shouldn't be - You should rest," he blurts, one hand in his hair, the other flapping without a cause. "Here. You should stay here. My dad's not home until…well…I don't know. But it doesn't matter. He won't - I hope he won't…Never mind. Fuck that. You can sleep on my bed. I have a beanbag. I can sleep on the beanbag. The beanbag's fine. Like, I can sleep anywhere. It's okay. I slept in a bathtub once. And it was - That's okay. Only if you want to, though. And I -"

"Simon." I chuck his chin. His head quirks up, puppy-like. I blink. I try to clear my throat, try to say okay, but all I manage is a nod. 

"Okay," Simon breathes. "Okay." 

He smiles. I pulverize.

 

✕

 

Simon's room doesn't look like the rest of this little grey house. 

Simon's room looks the way he dresses. And the way he talks. And the way touches. It's what I'd expect to find if I'd ever crack his head open to take a peek at his brain. A loud mess. A rumpled treasure chest.

It's a maze of overflowing shelves and band posters, crooked stacks of CDs between clothes scattered across the floor, forgotten coffee mugs on the window sill and the desk - that looks more like an extension of a trinket shelf than a workspace - neon sticky notes splattered like confetti between pot plants and action figures fixed with tape. Simon stumbles to one corner of the room and punches an overloaded power strip into a socket. I watch as a constellation of lamps sparks, webbed across the mess, some with frilled lampshades, some without, some just lonesome lightbulbs swaying like pendulums. I stare at the blue lava lamp bubbling on a stack of books next to his bed. Fiona would call this place a pawnshop, all gadgets and 'whatnots'. 

I'm surprised the plants are alive, green and breathing, cared for. I like the pothos dangling from the ceiling, vines crawling across the curtain rod and cradling the window. My mother used to grow one across the canopy of her bed. It was like you were lying under a tree, in the safe shade of something alive. 

This is the kind of room I was never allowed to have, everything jumbled into one, nothing fixed to its place, constantly migrating, shifting and changing as the days go by. An order of its own accord. Vibrant. Awake. I feel strangely comfortable in this mess. Maybe because it's Simon's. I think I feel comfortable in anything that's his. 

His room. His hands. 

"Sorry," Simon says from where he's standing in the middle of it all, hands dug into the pockets of his track pants, legs wobbling back and forth. "I don't usually have people over, so…" He trails off.

I give him a small smile. 

"I like it," I say.

He lifts his eyebrows. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

I watch him chew on his bottom lip, his cheeks like heat bulbs. I want to press my hands against them, warm my fingers up. But I'm afraid that wouldn't be enough and I'd end up grabbing them, chewing on them like some affectionate cannibal. 

Simon's hands twitch in the pockets of his trousers. He jiggles with his shoulders, a goofy grin on his face. 

"You wanna see my record collection?"

I grunt a laugh. Of course he has a record collection. 

"Absolutely."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." 

His smile turns into something intergalactic, all bright teeth and crinkled eyes. 

I think I'll start a collection. A collection of Simon Snow Saunders' smiles. It might as well already be the best collection of all time. Even better than aunt Fiona's The Beatles Stereo Box Set. 

I end up sitting on the blue beanbag next to his desk, watching as he kneels over a carton sprinkled with Pokémon stickers and shreds of duct tape. He carefully fishes out vinyl after vinyl, letting them spin on those record players you can carry around like a suitcase. 

He tells me about post-punk and new wave and 70's northern soul, why dream pop is nicknamed 'shoegaze', and how pub rock was short-lived but made the most important impact on rock's timeline ( _"Because otherwise real punk rock would've never happened, Baz! I mean, like, could you imagine a world without Eddie & the Hot Rods' 'Do Anything You Wanna Do'?! No rough-edged, pop-sprinkled perfection! If it weren't for pub rock, we wouldn't even have mod revival! No Paul fucking Weller! No Modfather! No Rod 'The Mod' Stewart! Wouldn't that be bonkers?"_)

And I just nod. I haven't got a bloody clue what he's going on about. But he's magnetic. He's electric. He's pulling me in, wild-eyed and ecstatic, hands bashing through the air, feet twitching to the rhythms. I wouldn't mind if he talked about Elizabeth Frazer's vocal magic having been the true backbone of the Cocteau Twins until the day I die.

I smile. He quirks his head to the side. 

"What?" 

"Nothing," I say.

He narrows his eyes. 

"Nothing!" I blurt, raising my hands as he nudges my knee with a careful fist. 

"I like that you like music," I say. 

Simon crunches his eyebrows, smiling and shaking his head - as if that was the strangest thing I've ever said. Which it was. 

That was the strangest thing I have ever said. 

He shrugs and mumbles, "What's there not to like? It's art. And you can listen to it. It's audible fucking art." His eyes spark up like highway signs at two AM, like beacons. 

I can already picture myself walking up his driveway and throwing a pebble at his window, serenading him with my violin until he hurls his lava lamp at me.  

We end up listening to Little Comets' _Jennifer and Other Short Stories_ ( _"Rob Coles is a lyrical genius, Baz! A genius! I want him to have my children. I want to have an army of lyrical genius babies."_ ) until Simon migrates onto the beanbag. It's too small, and we're too big, and it's only partly terrible because it gives me an excuse to touch one whole entire side of him. His shoulder and his arm and his ribs and his hip and his leg and his foot. 

And his hand. I'm holding his hand. And he's holding my hand. And I'm staring at his mouth. And he's staring at mine. 

I like the way he knows the lyrics to every song, his lips moving but no sound coming out, just air. He lifts our hands up, the warm light of the lamps welding our fingers together. And when he clumsily presses his mouth against my wrist, I'm not afraid I might kiss him - I'm afraid I might lurch forward and devour him, swallow him whole.

He smiles. Stupidly. Terribly. I add it to my collection. It's at the top of the list. 

 

✕

 

Simon falls asleep like he's slipping into it, gently and quietly, eyelashes shuddering slower and slower, breath smoothing out, his chest drumming, calm.

Looking back at that parking lot, it's hard to believe Simon can be this, too. 

Simon like this is not too much. Simon like this is just right. He's grounded, earthbound but endearing, like patchwork jeans and cold coffee and the smell of the road after a rain shower. Lived in and undemanding. He is so beautifully simple. 

I don't care about how it can't always be like this. This is worth losing myself in. If he can't fit, I'll make him. If it hurts, it hurts. I'm okay. I'm all right. I want to stay until I know how this goes. 

Maybe there's a part of me that's afraid of tomorrow. What if it all goes back to the way it was: to me pretending that it's okay to put him on hold, to him calling me while I stare at my phone, to us not knowing where we stand at all. 

But I want this. Right now, I want this. It's 4 AM and I want this.

I graze a knuckle along his cheek, trace the Summer Triangle - Deneb and Vega and Altair - think of space and time and other infinite things.

I kiss his forehead. I make a wish. 

I kiss his mouth. I let him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long! Again! I've been juggling two jobs while going to college. Why is money a thing. Why. I'M MOVING TO THE MOON.
> 
> Honestly, the whole bathroom scene was just shameless self-indulgence. Plus, that fight scene. Holy crap, I love fight scenes. I needed this chapter so bad. (Also, Niall/Agatha is sadly never going to happen...no Nagatha...Niagatha...Aganiall...I'm torturing him...I'm terrible..I'm so sorry, noodle) 
> 
> The next update might take a while. I'm so sorry, it's just right now everything's a bit of a mess. But I promise I won't abandon this fic! Never! I'm finishing this motherfucker!!! 
> 
> Hope you all have a super spectacular day! Smooches and bearhugs <3


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